Elections in France 2022: Emmanuel Macron, a convinced reformist for turbulent times

Since coming to power in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron has faced harsh protests against his reforms and a global pandemic, with the same impetus with which he is now seeking re-election in the middle of the war in Ukraine.

With between 27.6% and 29.7% of votes, according to first estimates, Macron managed to pass to the ballot on April 24, which will again face him against the far-right Marine Le Pen (23.5% and 24.7%).

Months before arriving at the Elysee five years ago, he already warned that he would be a “Jupiterine president”, an expression that, according to the Larousse dictionary, evokes the “dominant and authoritarian character” of the Roman god Jupiter. And he didn't disappoint.

The crisis of the “yellow vests” was its greatest exponent. This protest, which arose in 2018 due to the rise in fuel prices, spread throughout France to denounce the measures towards the popular classes of this former banker.

The mobilization underpinned his image of “president of the rich” and disconnected from reality, which was won by controversial phrases such as when he said that at train stations “you meet people who have been successful and people who are nothing”.

“I think I came [to power] with a vitality that I hope to continue to have, and with a willingness to shake” the system, he justified himself in December during an interview about his mandate, in which he acknowledged “mistakes.”

Starting in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic ended these protests in a new France of confinements and masks and boosted Macron's more “jupiterine” profile: “We are at war” against covid-19, he stressed then.

“General mobilization”

His personal management of the worst crisis since the Second World War earned him the attacks of the opposition and, despite the initial suspicion of the population, he managed to gain their trust and impose controversial measures such as the health passport.

“Crises require hyper-presidencialization (...) At that time, Macron is like a fish in water”, unlike when the “sea is calm”, journalist Corinne Lhaïk analyzed during the campaign in the newspaper L'Opinion.

The current Russian offensive in Ukraine represents another crisis that brought out the hyper-leadership of the centrist president who, despite failing to avoid war, saw his intention to vote increase in the polls.

However, the rise of the far-right Le Pen — its main rival in 2017 — threatens to snatch away a victory that seemed assured, in the midst of controversy over the massive use of consultancies by the government.

This elegant man, with a slender figure and blue eyes, was little known until his appointment as Minister of Economy in 2014 by then-French President François Hollande, after being his economic advisor.

Three years later, Macron, born in 1977 in Amiens (north) into a middle-class family, became France's youngest president-elect, aged 39, at the end of a meteoric rise of a man in a hurry.

“Bright and charismatic”

In 1995, he graduated with honors from the prestigious Parisian Lyceum Henry IV, after which he obtained a master's degree in philosophy. During his university years he worked as an editorial assistant to renowned French philosopher Paul Ricoeur.

In his time as a student he was already “brilliant and charismatic”, “a good speaker”, “with a profile like Barack Obama,” Julien Aubert, his classmate at the National School of Administration (ENA), the former elite training center, said in 2016.

By then, he had already found the love of his life. At the age of 16, he fell in love with his theater teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, 24 years older and mother of three children, who eventually divorced. The media couple that breaks the mold got married in 2007.

If elected, the Europeanist leader will have to complete his ambitious reform programme interrupted by the pandemic, in line with what is recommended by the European Commission to stabilize the economy.

Among its promises to transform France is the “renaissance” of nuclear energy, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and to push the retirement age to 65, a reform against which thousands of people have already demonstrated in 2019 and 2020.

(With information from AFP)