Macron: France ’On the Verge of a Great Renaissance’
Local Editor
Pro-Europe centrist Emmanuel Macron said France is "on the verge of a great renaissance" as he became the French President in a solemn Élysée Palace ceremony.
Macron vowed to work to heal divisions in society - a nod to the bitter campaign he fought to defeat far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
His inauguration marked a first for the world's fifth largest economy and founding member of the European Union, installing a 39-year-old newcomer unknown to the wider public three years ago and outside any traditional political grouping.
The former investment banker becomes the youngest post-war French leader and the first to be born after 1958 when President Charles de Gaulle put in place the country's Fifth Republic.
In his first word in office, he addressed himself to the fraught and fiercely contested election campaign in which he overcame the National Front's Le Pen but which was a disappointment for almost half of France's 47 million voters.
Many people feel dispossessed by globalization as manufacturing jobs move abroad and as immigration and a fast-changing world blur their sense of a French identity.
"The division and fractures in our society must be overcome. I know that the French expect much from me. Nothing will make me stop defending the higher interests of France and for working to reconcile the French," Macron declared.
A convinced European integrationist unlike Le Pen and other leadership candidates, Macron went on: "The world and Europe need more than ever France, and a strong France, which speaks out loudly for freedom and solidarity."
He will launch his bid for closer ties with EU anchor nation Germany at talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday in Berlin, where he will ram home the message that the bloc is resilient despite Britain's "Brexit" vote and a spate of financial and migration crises that has boosted the far right.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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