Political rookie Emmanuel Macron has swept to victory in the French Presidential Elections
pledging to unify the country and reinvigorate the economy.
The 39-year old is the first President from outside the two traditional main parties
since the modern republic's foundation.
His centrist, pro-European, open-border views stand in stark contrast
to the rising voices of Europe's resurgent far right.
This is how Macron’s unabashed ambition drove him from star pupil, to banker, to political rebel
and now President of France
Macron was raised in the town of Amiens, two hours north of Paris
This is the house he grew up in.
The eldest of three children from a family of doctors, he attended a Jesuit school.
A precocious kid, he preferred the company of teachers to other pupils.
And it was at school that he met his future wife.
Brigitte Auziere was coach of the drama club.
They worked closely together to re-write a school production
He was 16. She was 40, and married with three children
Gossip about their relationship began to spread and Macron left Amiens to finish high school
at an elite establishment in Paris.
Auziere followed later to teach. The pair married when Macron was 30.
After school he attended university in Paris, studying Philosophy,
then went to the prestigious National School of Administration, a breeding ground for the
French elite.
He works for four years as a high level bureaucrat at the Ministry of Economy,
before moving to the renowned investment bank Rothschild.
Macron was quickly parachuted into managing a massive acquisition
When the deal went through, he got a big payout.
Then in 2012 Macron was offered a position working with the new president
and a personal friend, Francois Hollande.
Two years later, Hollande gave him the prestigious position of Minister of Economy.
He was 36.
But by now Hollande’s public approval rating had fallen to historic lows.
Macron threw himself into a plan to loosen economic regulation… With testy exchanges
in parliament.
But the reforms were disliked and the legislation had to be forced through parliament, sparking
protest.
Macron increasingly criticised the government but still enjoyed the president's support.
Then last year he launched his own political movement - En Marche, or On the Move,
thrusting him into the national spotlight.
That's Mark Deen
The youthful contender was seen as a presidential long shot
But borrowing from US President Barack Obama’s election playbook,
he took to social media and ran a large grass-roots campaign.
By the time France went to the polls for the first round of voting in April he had successfully
reinvented himself.
He was no longer the free market reformer working under a failed President... but a
new voice in politics.
He secured the most votes of any candidate in
the first round, putting him into a runoff with another political outsider,
the far-right Marine Le Pen.
With voters facing the choice between a pro-EU centrist and an far-right candidate who wants
to pull France out of the union
Macron successfully pulled in support from both the moderate left and right.
He won with a resounding majority - taking over 66% of the vote to Le Pen’s 34.
But with this party unlikely to form a majority in the next parliament,
and a policy agenda straddling ideas from both side of the political spectrum,
Maron’s success now depends on building bridges with the traditional parties he has
defeated.