MACRON DOUSES LE PEN’S DREAMS OF AN UNRAVELED EUROPE

Macron, then Minister for Economy Industry and Digital Affairs, at a LeWeb Conference in Paris

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On the night of 7 May 2017: He walked up to the podium for his victory speech not to the sound of ‘La Marseillaise’ but of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, the anthem of Europe!

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by Rose Maramba

Vive l’Union Européenne!  Macron’s stunning victory doused Le Pen’s populist attempt – that had many parts of the world concerned  –  to unravel the EU.

Victory rally for Macron at the Louvre, 7 May 2017

When 39 year old centrist-liberal French president-elect  Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron walked down the Louvre courtyard to the podium for his victory speech,  it was not to the sound of “La Marseillaise” but of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, the anthem of Europe!

It was a musical contraposition to Marine Le Pen’s radical-right anti-European ideology.

A historic moment. Almost like a new lease on life for the “Europe” that’s shaken to the roots by Brexit.

Le Pen – Macron election posters 2017

France is necessary; it is, after all, a founding member of the European Communities (EC), now incorporated into the European Union and becoming the first of the EU’s so-called three pillars. Whatever France does is crucial to the EU.

Merci, France!

Brussels must now do its part and focus on proving to the people that the European Union is about them; that it is not a cold and heartless bureaucracy of monumental proportions that won’t take the cares of the people into account if those ran counter to balancing the budget!  (Read that as the unbending and unrelenting EU fiscal rules to correct national budget deficits now, never mind human sufferings.)

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EMMANUEL MACRON
> Born 21 December 1977 in Amiens, France
> Education: Bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Paris Nanterre University; Master’s in public affairs at Sciences Po; graduated from the École Nationale d’Administration, alma mater of many French presidents
> Former investment banker
> Former cabinet member of the French Socialist Party
> Political movement (not yet political party): En marche!
> Spouse: his high school teacher Brigitte Trogneux, 24 years his senior They first met when he was 15 and she a married woman of 39. Became officially a couple when he was 17. Married her in 2007.

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Images
Featured image by Ecole Polytechnique Université Paris, CC BY-SA2.0, cropped
Victory rally by Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA2.0
Election posters by Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA2.0
ENA logo, fair use