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Post by Admin on May 19, 2017 18:22:53 GMT
Emmanuel Macron has been remarkable. He is a former financial adviser and financial advisor to the Socialist government of the outgoing president, Francois Hollande. He resigned, just last year to form his own political movement. Our Paris correspond Lucy Williamson profiles the man chosen to be the country's new head of state.  Early Life Born in Amiens in northern France in December 1977, Emmanuel Macron is the son of a doctor and a neurology professor. Mr Macron gained degrees in philosophy and public affairs in Paris before attending the elite National School of Administration (which counts Francois Hollande among its graduates). He joined the civil service in 2004 and quit for a job with Rothschild investment bank in 2008. Reportedly becoming a millionaire, he left in 2012 for a senior position in Mr Hollande's staff, deputy secretary-general at the Elysee Palace. His climb up the establishment ladder continued in 2014 when then prime minister Manuel Valls made him minister for the economy.  |
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Post by Admin on May 20, 2017 18:40:58 GMT
 In 2007, Macron married his former high-school French teacher Brigitte Trogneux, who is 24 years his senior. They met at the private, catholic school La Providence in Amiens. At the time, he was 15-years-old. Brigitte Trogneux was, according to the IB Times, charmed by young Macron's intelligence and once stated: "Emmanuel's skills are totally above average. You can say I say this because we're married, but this is the teacher speaking." During a speech at their wedding, Macron thanked family and friends for "accepting" and "supporting" the couple throughout the years.  Macron was asked by Hollande to replace Arnaud Montebourg as Minister of Economy, Industry, and Digital Data in 2014. Macron's predecessor was considered a protectionist, and his most famous campaign was probably "Made in France," where he pushed individuals to buy French products over foreign goods. Macron on the other hand, is pro-businesses, pro-EU, and even urged American scientists, academics, and entrepreneurs, who feel uneasy about President Donald Trump's administration, to move to France. Montebourg was essentially sacked because he was outspoken about government cuts. A threat the Hollande government averted by ousting Montebourg from his position.  It's no secret that Macron and Hollande have a difficult relationship. The French saying "I love you, me either" comes in mind, when attempting to describe it. Macron was Hollande's mentee. They met in 2006 through a friend, and reports state that they got along well. In March 2015, Macron was asked in a radio interview with Europe 1 whether he wanted François Hollande to be president again. Macron stated that he was loyal to Hollande and the president of France was the "legitimate" candidate. A year later, he launched his movement "En Marche!" which roughly translates as "forward." Francois Hollande said of his protégé "he needs to be in the team, under my authority." |
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Post by Admin on May 27, 2017 18:25:37 GMT
 In one of Macron’s most controversial decisions on the campaign trial, he went in February to Algeria, which France had annexed for 132 years, and called on the French state to apologize formally for its crimes as a colonial power, especially in the bloody war for Algerian independence between 1954 and 1962. France’s history in that war, Macron said in an interview days later, represented “crimes and acts of barbarism” that today deserve to be labeled “crimes against humanity.” For months, Le Pen has harped on Macron for those three words, accusing him once again in a televised debate Wednesday of “insulting” the French people.  In a high-profile case, her father, in the 2002 presidential campaign, was accused of torture during the Algerian War — charges that the elder Le Pen vehemently disputes. Benjamin Stora, France’s preeminent expert on colonial Algerian history and a founding member of Paris’s National Museum of the History of Immigration, said in an interview that the outcry over Macron’s declaration has highlighted the ways in which, at least in this election, the past remains present. “For many people, colonialism has always been a distant abstraction, a peripheral problem,” he said. “But no one today who is honest can see it that way anymore. The question of immigration is a central question in our society and in many ways, the question.” So many of the problems in French society today, Stora said, stem from the aftermath of France’s colonial history — and the French state’s struggles to integrate immigrants from across the once-expansive French empire. “If you don’t know the history of Algeria, you cannot understand France in 2017,” he said. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 19, 2017 18:27:15 GMT
French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party looks poised to score a decisive victory after Sunday's second round of parliamentary elections, voting projections suggest. Macron's La Republique En Marche party and its political ally, the Mouvement Démocrate, MoDem, are likely to win between 355 and 365 seats in the 577-seat lower house, according to forecasts from CNN's French affiliate BFMTV.  That margin of victory would give Macron, a pro-European centrist, the large majority he craves to further his political revolution -- and would inflict a further blow on the country's traditional ruling parties. The conservative Les Républicains and their allies trailed with about 125 to 133 seats, according to BFMTV. The center-left Socialist Party and their allies are projected to win 41 to 49 seats. Party leaders began reacting to the projected results soon after polls closed closed Sunday evening. The far-right National Front stood to gain 6 to 8 seats. "This evening despite an alarmingly low turnout, the triumph of Emmanuel Macron is indisputable, the defeat of the left is unavoidable, the defeat of the Socialist party is without appeal, the right is facing a real failure," said Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, the leader of the Socialist party. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 28, 2017 18:44:28 GMT
 President Emmanuel Macron said Monday France refuses to recognise Russia's "annexation" of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Speaking after talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Paris, Macron said: "France is committed to Ukraine's sovereignty with its recognised borders." Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday visited Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, in a trip that Kiev condemned as a violation of its sovereignty. Western powers accuse Russia of failing to honour its commitments under the Minsk accords framework for ending the violence between government forces and Kremlin-backed rebels in Ukraine's east. |
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