Paris : French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday he would run for a second term in April’s elections, seeking a mandate to steer the euro zone’s second-largest economy through the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If he succeeds, he would be the first French leader for two decades to win a second term in office.
Without giving a detailed manifesto, Macron said he would continue to cut taxes and push for the French to work more, suggesting a return of an abandoned pension reform. He also hinted at a reform of the education system, saying teachers should be freer and paid better.
Macron enters the presidential race just a month or so before the election’s first round on April 10. Opinion polls project that he is favourite to win a contest that sees multiple challengers on the right and left fragmenting the vote.
Macron became France’s youngest leader since Napoleon five years ago, pitching himself as a political outsider who would break the old left-right dichotomy, make France more investor-friendly and make the EU stronger.
He cut taxes for big business and the wealthy, loosened labour laws and marketed France Inc. as a start-up nation, but anti-government “yellow vest” protests and then the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to slow his reform plans.
