Macron: Modern President with Midas touch

PARIS: He’s the man with the Midas touch -- and French President Emmanuel Macron looked set to prove it again Sunday, when his party was projected to sweep into parliament with one of the biggest majorities in the country’s post-war history.

and 14 months after founding his

(Republic on the Move) party, his candidates are poised to dynamite the traditional parties that have dominated French politics for half a century. But the hardest part may lie ahead. While REM is set to crush its rivals, the 39-year-old President could struggle to get his plans for far-reaching labor reforms past the

Opponents are also pointing out how low turnout for the parliamentary elections—less than half of voters are expected to cast a ballot—could undermine his claims to hold a strong mandate for change.

So far, however, he has enjoyed a political honeymoon.

In meetings with leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi, “as newsweekly nicknamed him, has made an instant impact on the international stage.

He even tried to intimidate US President Donald Trump with a memorable white-knuckle handshake at a NATO summit and later mocked his decision to pull the United States out of the global Paris accord to combat climate change.

Macron’s English-language appeal to “make our planet great again” —a riff on Trump’s own slogan of making America great again—became a social media sensation.

“France is in vogue again, France is cool,” Spain’s newspaper wrote, comparing the “Macronmania” to the enthusiasm that swept the US after Barack Obama was elected President in 2008.

A column in on Saturday by leftwing writer Timothy Egan also claimed that France now had “John F. Kennedy glam and New Frontier energy”.

At home, Macron has adopted a divide-and-rule approach to his opponents, wooing moderates from the left and the right to neuter the opposition.

The son of two doctors from the northeastern city of Amiens, Macron has made a career out of breaking the mold.

The former investment banker is married to his 64-year-old former teacher Brigitte, a divorced mother of three whom he fell for as a teen.

His path to France’s highest generational love story.

Macron had never held elected the ring to replace President Francois Hollande, two years after Hollande promoted him from political unknown to become economy minister.

In a country where political careers have traditionally been built over decades, Macron took the risk of founding his own party rather than trying to seek the nomination of the Socialists or the Republicans, the heavyweight parties on the left and right.

Using his image as a modernizer, he attracted thousands of volunteers to his party, which was modelled partly on Obama’s 2008 campaign.