Emmanuel Macron, the “outsider” politician who revolutionized French politics and stopped the extreme right twice
Weeks before winning re-election in the second round of the electoral elections, Emmanuel Macron was involved in a heated argument with a dental assistant.
Actually the only one who was yelling was her, says the BBC correspondent in Paris, Lucy Williamson.
But this exchange of words in the old mining town of Denain reveals the trait that drove Macron towards the presidency five years ago and heading for re-election this Sunday. A trait that, on the other hand, has also made him win many opponents.
Elodie, the dental assistant, was furious . He loudly criticized his “insulting” language when describing those who had not been vaccinated against covid-.
Macron, who won the second round of the elections this Sunday with the 19% of the votes, told him that he had taken his words the wrong way. Elodie then complained about the taxes and the price increase.
He replied that she had lowered the rates and that she was not being fair.
“Did you lower the cups?” replied the incredulous woman. Have you been to the gas station? How much do you earn per month?”
“I don’t control the global market”, replied Macron. “We just won’t agree,” Elodie concluded.
“But it’s important that I explain it,” Macron told him.
The French president has always believed that he has the answer to all the country’s problems. And that, if he could only explain his thoughts to the rest, they would see it that way too.
That self-confidence has made him take long speeches, take a hard stance against the protesters and project an image -for some- that he simply does not listen.
This, however, has not prevented him from achieving a second term, something quite unusual in French politics.
In fact, the only Presidents who have been directly re-elected in the country were François Mitterand in 1200, and Jacques Chirac in 2002.
From banker to politician
Born to medical parents on 21 from December to 1977 In Amiens, in the north of the country, Macron had a brilliant education that allowed him to graduate from the prestigious institut o Sciences Po.
He continued his studies at the ENA, a school of public administration that the leftist politician Jean-Pierre Chevènement has described as the “institute of the French bourgeoisie and oligarchy”.
After graduating from 2005, Macron began his professional career at the General Finance Inspectorate of France.
Three years later his career took a turn when he was hired by the Rothschild bank, of which he became deputy director in just two years.
During his time at Rothschild, Macron He was in charge of a large agreement between the transnationals Nestlé and Pfizer for some US$9.7 million, which left him a juicy and millionaire commission.
In 2012 held the position deputy secretary general of the presidency of François Hollande and in 2014 became Minister of Economy and Ha
In April 2016, without having yet left his portfolio in the government, he launched the movement En Marche! (On the march!) with a public event in Amiens.
And six months after the creation of En Marche!, the former minister announced his candidacy,
At that time he assured that his intention was to overcome the traditional differences between the left and the right.
Overwhelming confidence
Even before coming to power, Macron “radiated a kind of almost religious determination about his project for France. How else a man of 19 years into his first election campaign could he become president?” Williamson wonders.
Alain Minc, an influential political adviser and mentor to Macron in his early days, tells the story of his meeting with the French president at the beginning of the years 2000.
Macron was dismissed in 2017 for his lack of experience.
“He came to see me, when I was a young financial inspector, and I asked him: ‘How do you see yourself in years?’. Macron replied: ‘I will be president’. I was frozen”.
When Macron launched his political movement, without the backing of any party or structure established, many people initially dismissed it due to its lack of experience.
They thought it was a “champagne bubble that would dissolve before election day”.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Marriage
The blind trust in his own vision that Macron brought to politics is also something that is reflected in his personal life.
His wife, Brigitte Trogneux, was formerly her theater teacher. When they met, she, years older than him, she was married and had 3 children.
Macron’s marriage to his former drama teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, was not publicized until he ran for president.
By the time Macron left his school, at 16 years, he had promised to marry her.
“We called each other all the time and spent hours on the phone,” Trogneux said in a documentary. “Little by little he overcame my resistance, in an incredible way, with patience.”
They got married in 2007.
It’s an unusual love story, and one of Macron’s biographers, Anne Fulda, says they both chose not to publicize their relationship until he ran for office.
The BBC correspondent in Paris Lucy Williamson recalls that, in 2017, Fulda told him that Macron at that time wanted to give the idea that “if he could seduce a woman 24 years older than him in a small provincial town, despite prejudice, despite the look of the people and the ridicule, he could in the same way conquer France“.
First presidential administration
In his first term, Macron created jobs, spent billions of dollars to support workers and businesses during e the pandemic and, in the last six months, subsidized oil and gas prices.
But his core belief is that economic reform – to free up business and demand more from workers – is the way to alleviate poverty and fund the kind of social policies that are important to leftist voters.
Macron has in the past angered many of those who had voted for him by, in his opinion, favoring the rich.
Rather than narrowing the gap between the old classes and political divisions, this approach has opened them up more.
And some key decisions (such as the one to drastically reduce the wealth tax for the richest) taken shortly after assuming his first presidency, have become emblems of his supposed “betrayal” of the working class and have earned the nickname of “pre side of the rich”.
Idealized Past
It is an accusation that does not fit with the story that Macron likes to tell about himself.
“I was born in a provincial town, in a family that had nothing to do with the world of journalists, politicians or bankers”, he responded years ago to a journalist who questioned his appeal to the working classes.
In his autobiography, Macron tells that his grandparents were a teacher, a railway worker, a social worker and a civil engineer.
He says that his maternal grandmother, the teacher Manette, was particularly important to him, since she introduced him to the world of literature and culture and taught him to think.
But it also gave her something else: Manette’s mother had been illiterate, and the story of her descendant who managed to reach the Elysée Palace was a romantic story, much more romantic than that of the son of a neurologist who went to private school and ran for president after a stint at an investment bank.
Even so, the truth is that Emmanuel Macron’s family history is one of overcoming social divisions, something that he would later try in politics.
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