Emmanuel Macron Born: France's Youngest Modern President

Emmanuel Macron founded the centrist political movement En Marche in April 2016 and won the French presidency a year later at age 39, becoming the youngest leader of France since Napoleon Bonaparte took power at 30 in 1799. Born in Amiens, Picardy on December 21, 1977, Macron attended the elite Lycee Henri-IV in Paris and Sciences Po before graduating from the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), the training ground for France's governing class. He worked as an investment banker at Rothschild & Co., where he brokered a major deal involving Nestle and Pfizer, before entering government as an economic advisor to President Francois Hollande. His personal life drew early attention. He married Brigitte Trogneux, a teacher at his high school in Amiens, who was 24 years his senior. They met when he was 15 and she was his drama teacher. Their relationship became public when he was a teenager and has been a subject of fascination and commentary throughout his political career. He served as Minister of Economy under Hollande from 2014 to 2016, pushing pro-business reforms that put him at odds with the Socialist Party's left wing. He resigned to launch En Marche, a movement that deliberately positioned itself outside the traditional left-right framework that had governed the Fifth Republic since its founding. His 2017 election shattered the traditional party system. He defeated Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front in the second round with 66 percent of the vote, and En Marche won an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly. The Socialists and the center-right Republicans, which had alternated power for decades, were reduced to marginal parties. His domestic agenda centered on labor market deregulation, pension reform, and reducing public spending. The reforms triggered the Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) protests beginning in November 2018, a grassroots movement against fuel tax increases that expanded into broader opposition to his economic agenda and governing style. He won reelection in 2022, again defeating Le Pen, but with a reduced margin.