Macron vows to rebuild confidence
Print Edition
EMMANUEL Macron yesterday became France’s youngest ever president and made a pledge at his inauguration to restore the country’s lost confidence and relaunch the flagging European Union.
Macron, a 39-year-old centrist, took the reins of power from Socialist Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace a week after his resounding victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
After a private meeting with his former mentor, Hollande, and his first speech as president, Macron headed up the Champs Elysees in an army vehicle, waving to the small crowds who gathered along the famed avenue.
Macron said his first priority would be “to give back to the French people the confidence that for too long has been flagging,” while the second would be making France a beacon for democracy and freedom worldwide.
France’s place was in the European Union “which protects us and enables us to project our values in the world,” but he said the 28-member bloc needed to be “reformed and relaunched.”
Macron also hinted he would press on with his ambitious agenda to reform France’s rigid labor market and modernize the social security system.
“I will not reverse course on any of the commitments taken in front of the French people,” he said, adding that “France is strong only if she is prosperous.”
Questions have been asked about Macron’s mandate after he won just 24.01 percent in the first round of the presidential election before a landslide victory over Le Pen in the second.
His opponents on the far-right and far-left, opposed to the EU and major economic reforms, won around 50 percent of the first-round vote.
Yet the former investment banker was proclaimed president by Laurent Fabius, president of the Constitutional Council, at the 18th-century presidential palace in central Paris where Macron and his wife Brigitte will now live.
“In order to be the man of one’s country, one must be the man of your time,” Fabius told him, quoting the Romantic-era French writer Chateaubriand. “You are now the man of your time ... and by the sovereign choice of the people, you are now, above all ... the man of our country.”
The new president faces a host of challenges including tackling high unemployment, fighting Islamist-inspired violence and healing divisions exposed by a vicious election campaign.
Hollande’s five years in power were plagued by a slow economy and bloody terror attacks that killed more than 230 people.
Today Macron is expected to reveal the name of his prime minister, before flying to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Pro-EU Macron wants closer links between the two nations to help overcome the imminent departure of Britain from the EU bloc. He intends to press for the creation of a parliament and budget for the eurozone.
Merkel welcomed Macron’s decisive victory over Le Pen, saying he carried “the hopes of millions of French people and also many in Germany and across Europe.”
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