What about the French presidential candidate who married a middle school teacher?

According to a BBC report yesterday, 39-year-old Macron rose to prominence in the first round of the French presidential election, and observers believe that he will win the presidency in the second round on May 7.

Macron is the youngest presidential candidate in French history. There are many stories about his political career and personal feelings.

Step into politics

The story of Macron's political career began in April 20 16. At that time, he was the economic minister in the ruling team of the current President Hollande Socialist Party.

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, two days before he announced the launch of the "Forward Movement", he pulled President Hollande aside at the Elysee Palace and said simply, "Oh, I want to tell you by the way: I have an activity in my hometown of Amiens on April 6. I want to launch a youth movement, a bit like a think tank. "

On the evening of April 6, 20 16, Amiens, more than 0/00 kilometers north of Paris, was very quiet, with no TV broadcast and no campaign leaflets. Hundreds of people gathered to listen to Macron's speech. The party was very low-key and most of the participants were his family and friends. The meeting place was simple and simple, and Macron's wife, brigitte, sat in the front row and took notes.

Macron took the stage to give a speech. After spending an hour talking about French industry and employment prospects, he finally announced the ultimate goal of his gathering: to launch a "forward" movement.

In the eyes of many people, Macron's move is quite risky. He was originally a cadre in the ruling Hollande government and was regarded as a key training object. In the future, he will have a bright future in the ruling socialist party. Macron, who had no political experience, resigned from the Socialist Party, launched a "non-left and non-right" forward movement and participated in the 20 17 presidential election, thus stepping into politics. Supporters like him that "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers"; People who don't like him criticize young people for being careless and "scampering for a few days".

At that time, one of his colleagues in the government team forwarded a link to a song on social media, entitled "I am on the road alone". However, he went into politics alone and soon found like-minded people. Today, the "Forward Movement" has more than 200,000 registered members. There is no need to pay fees to participate in this movement, and supporters do not have to leave other political parties to participate.

Who would have expected that within a year, the young political party, young Macron, won the first place in the French presidential election held at the weekend, beating the old French politicians and taking the lead in the first round of voting. This is an unprecedented precedent in modern French political history. A real political star, Ran Ran, has risen.

Someone's (unfortunate) fate

Mr Mannur Macron was born in February 1977 65438+2 1. When describing his growing background, he likes to highlight that he comes from the grassroots.

He said: "I was born in a small town in a remote province, and my family has nothing to do with journalists, politicians or bankers." "I am getting higher and higher, and the school has helped me. I make my own choices and take my own risks. I am proud to say that I am a working-class and middle-class presidential candidate. "

He likes to describe himself as a boy from outside the French system. Today's success depends on his outstanding performance and hard work.

He said: "My grandparents are teachers, railway workers, social workers and bridge and highway engineers. They all come from ordinary families. "

However, his parents are unusual. Macron's father is a professor of neurology at Piccadilly University, and his mother, francoise, is a doctor of medicine. When he studied in his hometown school until the last year of middle school, he was sent to Henry IV Middle School, the top high school in France.

He studied at the French National School of Administration and the Paris School of Politics, which are famous for cultivating French elites.

He likes to talk about his intimate relationship with his grandmother manean. In books and interviews, he mentioned this grandmother the most times, so that in his description, the images of his parents were vague.

His mother, francoise, once told the biographer, "Look at Emanuel's article, he has no parents or family at all. I don't accept this. We are a family far away from Paris and live a petty-bourgeois life. Parents work hard, but they give their children a safe and secure home. "

His mother also said that the family he grew up in was very traditional. "It was not the magical world he described at all, only his grandmother."

Macron and her grandmother are really close. According to his biographer Ann Fulda, he talked to his grandmother on the phone almost every day, whether he worked in a bank or later became the government's economic minister. During his tenure as Minister of Economy, he met his father only once a year.

Grandma Manean is an important person in Macron's life, and Manean's mother is illiterate. This gave Macron a real working-class qualification: the son of a neurologist ran for the French president, which was certainly far less romantic than the election of his illiterate great-grandson.

love

If his grandmother Manean is the first female teacher in Macron's life, then his wife brigitte Toni is the most important female teacher in his life.

Bridget is a Chinese and drama teacher of Long Guanwu in Amiens Middle School, 24 years older than him. Bridget was the mother of three children when they met.

In addition to being a French teacher, Bridget is also in charge of managing the school drama club.

In 20 16, brigitte once commented on Macron in a French documentary: "He is different, he is not a teenager at all, and his relationship with other adults is completely equal."

According to brigitte's memory, one day Macron came to talk to her about the script, hoping to write a script for the graduation performance of the drama club. "I didn't expect him to persist for a long time. Soon he will get tired of it. We wrote together, bit by bit, and I was completely impressed by the boy's cleverness. "

Macron left Amiens at the age of 16 and went to Paris to finish high school. Before he left, he vowed to marry brigitte. "We often talk on the phone for hours. In this way, bit by bit, he used his patience to make me give up my resistance. It's incredible. "

Bridget later divorced and started a relationship with Macron, and they got married in 2007.

Biographer Ann Fulda believes that such an unusual love affair also reflects Macron's persistence and self-confidence.

Fulda said that for years, the couple kept a low profile and didn't like exposure. But since Macron announced his candidacy for the presidency, the situation has changed. "He wants the public to think that if he can conquer a married woman who is 24 years older than him and has three children in a rural town, he can conquer France in the same way."

campaign for

At the campaign headquarters in Macron, the atmosphere is more like Silicon Valley than downtown Paris. Here, the main color is red, yellow and blue, most people wear T-shirts, and bunk beds allow tired volunteers to rest at any time, most of whom are young people under 30.

Macron has repeatedly stressed that he wants to create a new type of politics. As there is no existing party structure to rely on, he must rely on the will and loyalty of his supporters.

In order to unite the voters with divisive political ideas around them, the unique personal charm of the candidate is very useful. But all political movements need ideological cohesion.

Before Macron made his political declaration, he conducted a nationwide door-to-door survey on voters' attitudes and dissatisfaction.

Volunteers of the "Forward Movement" asked all the voters they could meet two questions: What is good in France now? What's not good?

And the answer is quite contradictory. Many people say that schools are good, but the national education system is not good. In people's eyes, schools and education systems are two different things.

When Macron finally put forward his campaign platform, his opponents laughed at him for being vague and not specific enough. His critics say that Macron supports and opposes everything.

Marianne Le Pen, the opponent of the far-right party, once ridiculed in the campaign debate: Mr. Macron, you are very talented. You talked for seven minutes at a stretch, but I can't sum up what you said. What you said is empty talk!

However, "empty talk" Macron took the lead in the first round of voting. In addition to campaign strategy, I'm afraid I need luck.

Macron's luck will be revealed on May 7th.