Maverick 38-year old ex-banker Emmanuel Macron throws down gauntlet for French presidency

Franceis blocked by vested interests and cannot go on with the same old faces, claimed a 38-year old ex-banker who set a cat among the pigeons on both Right and Left on Wednesday by announcing his candidacy for the French presidency.

After weeks of pseudo-suspense, Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister, threw his hat into the presidential ring on Wednesday morning and vowed to part from “the same men and ideas” that have run French politics for decades.

Mr Macron was president François Hollande’s eminence grise at the Elysée advising him on economic reform before serving as economy minister from 2014 to this year.

But he angered his former mentor by resigning to create his new centrist party, En Marche! (On the Move). On Tuesday, he became the latest French presidential hopeful to cast himself as a maverick outsider in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in America.

"I've seen the emptiness of our political system from the inside... I reject this system," he said, calling for a “democratic revolution” to end "vested interests" but without providing any detailed action plan.

Speaking from a gritty Parisian suburb, the clean-cut pro-business ex-minister who is married to a divorcee 20 year his senior and who has never held elected office, insisted he was "neither of the Left or the Right" but “for France”.

A relative rarity, he has no party apparatus behind him but has won popularity for vocally criticising France’s sclerotic labour laws and pledging to free these up to bring jobs to deprived areas.

The mainstream centre-right French Republicans party is tipped to win France’s two-stage presidential election in April and May, but the Trump victory has sent jitters through the political establishment.

Mr Macron's candidacy has fuelled that uncertainty, with the Republicans and ruling Socialist parties yet to nominate their candidates less than six months before the voting.  

A buoyant far-right Front National under leader Marine Le Pen, who announced her slogan "In the name of the people" on Wednesday, insists that a Trump victory could herald another surprise in her favour in France.

"Mr Macron is a candidate of the banks, there's always one," she said dismissively.  

Ms Le Pen picked a blue rose as a campaign emblem, saying it was "the symbol of the people being able to make possible what the elites constantly present as impossible ... My election at the presidency has been called impossible for months now, it is up to the people to make it possible," she said in her speech.

A poll Tuesday suggested Mr Macron is one of France's most "presidential" figures behind the election favourite Alain Juppé, a 71-year-old former prime minister promising to foster a “happy identity” for France while cutting state spending.

Mr Juppé is seeking the Republicans' nomination ahead of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy and former prime minister Francois Fillon, who polls show has made a late surge ahead of primary voting this Sunday and next.

Mr Juppé brushed aside Mr Macron’s bid, saying it was “more of a problem for the Left”, but the pair are both gunning for the centre-ground and his entry could hurt Mr Juppé’s chances in a highly unpredictable primary vote – the first of its kind for the centre-Right. Juppé aides are worried that the centrist electorate he needs to beat Mr Sarkozy may stay at home if they feel there is another moderate alternative.

The Macron campaign is likely to further split the already fractious Left-wing vote as speculation grows that Manuel Valls, the prime minister, will stand instead of the deeply unpopular Mr Hollande against a string of other contenders.

Mr Hollande's trade minister Matthias Fekl warned that the Macron candidacy had placed “ a time bomb at the heart of a political family. The bomb has exploded," he told RMC radio.