Summary 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron has become the youngest president of France.
(Web Desk) - Emmanuel Macron is the youngest president of France with no experience in running a political campaign or holding elected office. He served under President François Hollande as Minister of Economy, Industry, and Digital Affairs.
Here are the few most important things that we should know about the new French president:
He is the youngest president of France
Born in December 1977 in Amiens, a city in northern France, Macron is 39-years-old and is now youngest-ever president since the French Republic was established in 1848. He is the eldest child of Jean-Michel Macron and Francoise Macron-Nogues and the only one in his family not to have pursued a medical career.
Worked for four years in an investment bank
Macron holds significant experience in financial sector. Macron was an investment banker at Rothschild from 2008 to 2012. Before that banking job, he worked in France’s economy ministry. After Rothschild, he returned to civil service, including serving in his predecessor’s cabinet before resigning to start his independent political party and movement “En Marche”.
Has never held elected office
Macron’s first roles came under his predecessor, Francois Hollande, as a member of his personal staff and later as a minister of economy, industry, and digital affairs under the government of Manuel Valls.
He identifies as centrist although his he was a member of the Socialist Party for three years before becoming an independent politician in 2009.
He called France’s colonial past in Algeria a ’crime against humanity’.
Unlike his political rivals from the left and right, Macron was one of the first political figures to call out France’s colonial past.
He labelled it a “crime against humanity” and said “it s really barbaric and is part of that past that we must face up to also by apologizing to those who were hurt”.
Macron rules out unilateral recognition of Palestine
Just days before election day, Macron said he would not unilaterally recognize the state of Palestine if he becomes elected. He told French media that he backs a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that “unilaterally recognizing Palestine would cause instability and would harm France’s relations with Israel”.
