The Meteoric Rise of France's Emmanuel Macron

Political rookie Emmanuel Macron is tipped to be France's next President. The 39-year-old pro-European centrist faces the far right Marine Le Pen in a May 7th runoff. This is the story behind Macron's meteoric rise in French politics. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Political rookie Emmanuel Macron
is leading the polls

and is tipped to be
France's next president.

The 39-year-old’s meteoric rise has shaken
the political establishment...

while also being its last hope.

His centrist, pro-European, open-border views
stand in stark contrast to the rising voices

of Europe's resurgent far right.

This is how Macron’s unabashed ambition
drove him from star pupil,

to banker, to political rebel

and now the hot
favourite to lead France.

Macron was raised in the town
of Amiens, two hours north of Paris…

This is the house he grew up in.

The eldest of three children from a family
of doctors, he attended a Jesuit school.

A precocious kid, he preferred the company
of teachers to other pupils.

And it was at school that
he met his future wife.

Brigitte Auziere was
coach of the drama club.

They worked closely together
to re-write a school production

He was 16.

She was 40, and married
with three children

Gossip about their relationship
began to spread

and Macron left Amiens
to finish high school

at an elite establishment in Paris.

Auziere followed later to teach

and the pair married
when Macron was 30.

After school he attended university
in Paris, studying Philosophy,

then went to the prestigious
National School of Administration,

a breeding ground
for the French elite.

He works for four years as an inspector
at the Ministry of Economy, before moving

to the renowned investment
bank Rothschild.

Macron was quickly parachuted
into managing a massive acquisition.

Nestlé has agreed to buy Pfizer's infant nutrition
business for almost 12 billion dollars.

When the deal went through,
he got a big payout.

Then in 2012 Macron was offered
a position working for the new president,

and a personal friend,
Francois Hollande.

Two years later, Hollande gave him
the prestigious position of Minister of Economy.

He was 36.

But by now Hollande’s public approval
rating had fallen to historic lows.

Macron threw himself into a plan
to loosen economic regulation…

With testy exchanges in parliament.

But the reforms were disliked

and the legislation had to be forced through
parliament, sparking violent protest.

Macron increasingly criticized the government
but still enjoyed the president's support.

Then last year he launched his own political
movement, En Marche, or On the Move

thrusting him into
the national spotlight.

He’s really come out of nowhere,
you know, three years ago

Emmanuel Macron was barely
known to the general public

and here he is today
on the verge of becoming President.

That's Mark Deen.

I’m the deputy bureau chief
at Bloomberg News in Paris

and I’m on the campaign trail
with Emmanuel Macron.

The youthful contender was seen
as a presidential long shot.

When he started his movement everyone,
you know, including, many journalists

including myself, said oh well,
you know, that's pretty cute,

and it's a nice effort but, you know,
he's not going to be president.

But borrowing from US President
Barack Obama’s election playbook,

he took to social media and ran
a large grass-roots campaign.

By the time France went to the polls
for the first round of voting in April

he had successfully
reinvented himself.

He was no longer the failed reformer
working under a failed President...

but a new voice in politics.

He secured the most votes of any
candidate in the first round,

putting him into a runoff
with another political outsider,

the far-right Marine Le Pen.

Still it’s not all smooth sailing
into the The Élysée Palace -

Macron has many critics on both
sides of the political spectrum.

But against a far-right candidate
who wants to leave the EU,

will voters on the left and the right
swing behind Macron?

The answer is that polls currently
show that that is what will happen.

However, you know, this election is not over,
abstention is key and anything can happen,

we’ve seen it with Brexit,
we’ve seen it with Trump.