France looks likely to re-elect Emmanuel Macron
But his race against Marine Le Pen is a lot closer than it was last time
ON APRIL 6TH 2016 a 38-year-old former investment banker who, two years before, had been appointed as a minister in France’s Socialist government announced that he wanted to change French politics. Standing in front of an audience in his home town of Amiens he declared that the old divisions between left and right were not relevant to 21st-century challenges. Matters such as climate change, or Europe, split the established mainstream parties as much as they held them together. It was time for a “political movement” that would be “neither on the left nor the right”.
The event was the talk of France’s political classes. But maybe only the man on the stage believed that the movement he was starting would go as far as it has. “At the time we didn’t even know if Emmanuel Macron would run for the presidency,” recalls Brigitte Fouré, the mayor of Amiens.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Standing out from the crowd"
From the April 7th 2022 edition
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