President France: Emmanuel Macron, the architect of the french renaissance

  Magazine: Estilo de Vida Latin America by Claudia M. Gómez – Photo: Emmanuel Macron

The youngest man to become president of France since Napoleon, he said emphatically, before taking office, that his goal was not to lead the people to the right or the left, but to unite the people; and that was something that many French appreciated, tired of a partisan war that used them, but did not benefit them.

Voters were also seduced by his optimistic discourse on the future of the country and Europe, without populism, nationalism or xenophobia. It was thus that his party, En Marche!, became one of the most voted, and the one that led him to be elected – in 2017 – to be the 25th inhabitant of the Elysée Palace, at only 39 years of age.

Thus, with the phrase: “my election is the beginning of a French and, I hope, European renaissance”, Emmanuel Macron began this fast-paced career in his first public office, which would not only have him committed for the five years of government, but also, this 2022, after demonstrating a favorable change for the people, has allowed him to be reelected for another five-year term, at the head of the French power.

The path that led him to the political scene began after graduating from high school at the prestigious Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, when he decided to study philosophy at the University of Paris-Nanterre, where he was an assistant to one of the driving forces of May ’68, the philosopher Paul Recoeur. He also received a diploma in Political Science from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris in 2001, and a degree in Finance from the National School of Administration (ENA).

He was a member of the Mouvement des Citoyens for two years, and then joined the Socialist Party. But he also worked as a finance inspector at the French Ministry of Economy, before joining the investment bank Rothschild & Cie Banque, in 2008. In 2012, he was appointed deputy secretary general of the Elysée Palace and, in 2014, Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs. Finally, he seeks the opportunity to be a candidate for the French presidency, and on May 7, 2017, he succeeds in this challenge, defeating Marine Le Pen, in the second electoral round.

ON A PERSONAL LEVEL

Emmanuel was raised in a family belonging to the high bourgeoisie of the provinces. He is the son of Françoise Macron-Noguès, a doctor and counselor, and Jean-Michel Macron, a physician and professor of Neurology at the CHU of Amiens.

He was a brilliant student throughout his career. He studied in his hometown at the La Providence school, run by the Jesuits, but he also studied piano at the Amiens Conservatory. His parents decided to send him to the capital, to live with his grandmother Germaine, to finish high school at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris.

He married Brigitte Trogneux in 2007, from a family of chocolate entrepreneurs in Amiens, who was his French teacher at the Jesuit school and with whom he fell in love when he was only 17 years old and she was 36, in addition to being married, with three children.

In his spare time, the French president is an accomplished skier, boxer and tennis player; he also plays the piano.