Emmanuel Macron, 39, will become France’s youngest president on Sunday, shattering a record held since 1848.
France’s President-elect Emmanuel Macron easily saw off a challenge from right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s election. He takes office Sunday.
Here are 5 things to know about him.
Macron, 39, becomes France’s youngest president on Sunday, shattering the record of Louis Napoleon — Napoléon Bonaparte’s nephew — who won the French presidency in 1848 at age 40. However, Macron is not France’s youngest-ever ruler. King Louis XIV was just 4 years old when he assumed the throne in 1643.
Macron was economy minister for two years under outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande until his resignation in 2016, when he stepped down to run for the presidency. Before Sunday, he had never been elected into office. His job as economy minister was an appointed role.
Centrist Macron founded his En Marche! (On the Move) political group a little over a year ago. His idea for the party was for it to be “neither of the Left or the Right.” Because it is a brand new party, it currently has no seats in France’s National Assembly, the country’s 577-seat parliament. However, a poll published last week predicted that En Marche! could win a governing majority in the lawmaking body when legislative elections are held in June.
Unlike Le Pen, Macron is pro-European Union and wants France to remain in the political bloc as well as continue to use the euro currency. He does want it be reformed, though. He will seek closer cooperation with EU members on security, trade and budgets.
A former investment banker, Macron married his high school French and drama teacher, Brigitte Trogneux. She is 64 — 24 years his senior. In a book called Emmanuel Macron: A Perfect Young Man, French journalist Anne Fulda says that Macron was 15 when he met Trogneux. Macron vowed to marry her at 16. After Trogneux’s relationship with her first husband ended, the pair married in 2007.
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