A little too perfect

Emmanuel Macron is going to be the next president of France. I know people are saying Marine Le Pen isn’t out of the race and it’s important to keep the suspense going as long as possible. But I see no scenario in which the French will vote her into the Elsyée. 

Le Pen’s attempt to distance herself from the toxic National Front founded by her father, declaring herself an independent, just like Macron, is entertaining. But it will change nothing. The French may claim to be revolutionaries but they are terrified of change and Marine scares them. Avec raison. 

So the serious questions are, who is Emmanuel Macron, the future president of the republic, and what should we expect from his forthcoming quinquennat? Even in the full flush of enthusiasm for this fresh young political face (he is still just 39) there are problems and doubts. 

Although a provincial, he is a classic product of the hyper-selective system used by the elite to perpetuate itself, producing fellows (mostly) who are good at passing exams – and hopeless at running France. Macron is a whizz at tests and now he is about to pass the hardest of all, with a prize of a gilded palace and the world’s best wine cellar. 

Nevertheless, there is something maybe a little too perfect about this golden boy. Always top of his class in school, he appears to have had few friends in his immediate cohort, preferring piano lessons and drama to sport, always attaching himself to older authority figures. 

And at the very center of his life, since his earliest childhood, there has been this infatuation with older women. His book, Revolution, reveals his earliest influence to have been his grandmother, a teacher who, according to Macron, inspired all who encountered her.