https://youtu.be/HFT2bR1XUUQ
The 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron has become France’s youngest president.
Founder of the independent ‘On the Move’ movement, has shaken up France’s traditional political divide. He’s won over fellow centrist Francois Bayrou, a leading ecologist, some of Chirac’s ex-ministers and several socialist party heavyweights, including former prime minister Manuel Valls.
Macron had never held elected office prior to the election. He was working as an investment banker when he was hired in 2012 by Francois Hollande as an advisor. In 2014, aged 36, he was appointed economy minister.
He made his name at the ministry by introducing the Macron Law aimed at reviving growth and employment in France. The controversial law had to be forced through parliament, dividing the presidential majority.
Passionate about philosophy and literature, Macron is married to his former high school teacher, more than twenty years his senior.
Macron’s political agenda is pro-Europe and pro-business. He wants:
– a universal retirement system to end current inequalities between the private and public sectors.
-to simplify the unemployment benefits system
-the reintroduction of an exemption on taxes on overtime hours worked
-to invest 50 billion euros in new job training schemes and environmental programmes
-positive discrimination to boost employment of people from the suburbs
-the abolition of residence taxes for 80% of households
-to shrink the civil service by 120,000 jobs while also creating 4- 5 thousand new teaching jobs
-and to reconstruct local police forces, creating 10,000 new police jobs.
He is also in favor of proportional representation in parliament. As president, Macron has promised to make public life more ethical and to make gender equality a priority. (Courtesy Agence France Presse)
