Political novice announces his bid for presidency of France
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FORMER French economy minister Emmanuel Macron, a 38-year-old political novice, yesterday announced his bid for the presidency, as an alternative to the “same men and same ideas” that have guided France for decades.
Macron finally ended speculation about his intentions by announcing his candidacy for his En Marche centrist party from a training center in a gritty suburb northeast of Paris.
Never elected and “neither of the left or the right” in his own words, the pro-business and technology-savvy former investment banker is hoping to shake up a race between older, more familiar figures.
“I’m ready, that’s why I am candidate for the French presidency,” he said, promising a “democratic revolution” that would restore France’s optimism and self-confidence.
The center-right Republicans party is tipped to win the two-stage election in April and May, but some analysts are questioning their assumptions after Donald Trump’s stunning upset in the United States.
National Front under leader Marine Le Pen, who announced her election campaign logo yesterday, is seeking to capitalize on a surge in nationalism and anti-globalization.
Macron, who quit the beleaguered Socialist government in August to focus on his own political movement, is expected to steal centrist voters from the Republicans and the left.
A poll on Tuesday showed him as one of France’s most “presidential” figures behind favorite Alain Juppe, a 71-year-old former prime minister from the Republicans who has one of the longest CVs in French politics.
Macron by contrast has a meager two years in government as a sometimes rebellious economy minister from 2014-2016 and time as an adviser to his former mentor President Francois Hollande.
“I believe that the French people won’t put their destiny in the hands of someone with no experience,” former prime minister and another Republicans candidate, Francois Fillon, said yesterday morning.
Socialist rival Arnaud Montebourg dismissed Macron as the “media’s candidate who has been on 75 magazine front pages despite never having proposed anything.”
But Macron believes his youth and inexperience are assets in a country weary of a political class blamed for years of tepid growth, high unemployment and rising government debt.
“We have entered a new era,” Macron said yesterday referring to the dangers of global warming, terrorism, rising inequality and a crisis for Western democracies. “We can’t respond with the same men and the same ideas.”
President Hollande, who is yet to announce whether he will try to defy his disastrous ratings in next year’s election, is reportedly furious at what he sees as betrayal by his one-time protegee.
On Tuesday, he called for “cohesion” and “uniting” amid disarray in the Socialist party.
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