Emmanuel Macron belongs to no party and has never stood for office, but with the help of his En Marche! movement he is seen as a potential successor to François Hollande

On a Wednesday night at a student hall of residence in southern Paris, residents were surprised to find a group of people in matching grey T-shirts knocking on bedroom doors to ask them earnestly what was wrong with France.



“Can you name something that works in France today?” asked one of the door-knockers. A 19-year-old studying human resources scratched her head and said she couldn’t think of anything. “OK, what doesn’t work in France?” came the next question. That was easier to answer. “Unemployment and having no hope of ever finding job that matches my qualifications,” said the student, who said she came from a poor suburb of Toulouse plagued with discrimination. Her answer was diligently noted down.

It was a typical evening’s work for the volunteer members of France’s newest political movement, En Marche! — or Forward! — set up by the iconoclastic young economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, as a launchpad for a possible presidential bid next year.

Macron’s 16,000 volunteers – known as marcheurs – have been tasked with going door-to-door in more than 50 towns and cities in France, gathering 100,000 suggestions from the public by the end of this month that will be pulled together into a political programme this autumn.

Whether or not the outspoken Macron will then run for president next year is a question obsessing Paris’s political class. He will hold his first political rally for En Marche! in Paris on Tuesday, but he has not yet said whether he will launch a presidential bid.

Emmanuel Macron: Brexit would turn UK into tiny trading outpost Read more

Aged 38, the minister is one of the most popular political figures in France. An intellectual, one-time philosopher and former banker who has likened his own rebellious streak to France’s 15th-century saint and saviour Joan of Arc, he rails against what he deems the paralysis, inequality and sluggishness of a deeply troubled France. More than 30% of the electorate think he’d make a good president, and 55% think he’s bringing new ideas. He is far more popular than the deeply disliked François Hollande, the Socialist president who mentored him.



But Macron belongs to no political party and has never run for elected office, two factors that could yet hinder his next move. He is seeking to boost his standing with his En Marche! movement — which he describes as neither “of the right nor the left” and which has gained 50,000 members since launching in April. Yet he is in an awkward position: playing for time to see if Hollande will run again for a second term and positioning himself to run if the president steps aside. He doesn’t want to appear to be stabbing his former mentor in the back – or at least not too soon.

Macron’s unusual career path into politics is both a positive and a hindrance. He was catapulted by Hollande from mere presidential adviser to economy minister, one of the Socialist government’s most important jobs, just two years ago. Since then, the pro-business, reformist Macron has attacked all totems of the left – from the 35-hour-week to the large public sector, and has embarrassed the Socialists by repeatedly criticising the discrimination and inequality that still defines France’s high-rise suburban estates.



The En Marche! volunteers who go door to door are crucial in building Macron’s image. He wants to show he is listening and is not divorced from voters’ concerns – a charge currently levelled against most of France’s political class. Polls show that he is most popular among rightwing, older and professional voters. Yet ultimately his aim is to be a down-to-earth straight talker who can bring together people of all backgrounds.



One finance student from Metz, whose grandparents came to France from Algeria, opened his door to answer the Macron volunteers’ questions. “Macron seems willing to listen and wants to reform, but let’s see if he’ll last or whether he’s just a passing trend,” he said.

French union leader vows to continue struggle against labour law Read more

“Macron listens to people, he is one of the rare politicians who has understood what state our society is in,” said Christophe Jaunet, 57, a sociologist working on the social fracture in French towns and urban peripheries. Jaunet, a former Socialist activist who left the party, is now one of Macron’s door-to-door volunteers.

Macron’s popularity is second only to that of Alain Juppé, the former prime minister and contender in the primary race to be the right’s presidential candidate in 2017. But in recent months Macron has seen a slight dip in his poll ratings after a few PR mishaps, in which he appeared haughty, including being caught on camera in an argument with a demonstrator in a T-shirt and telling him “the best way to afford a suit is to work”.

He was also criticised for falling into the celebrity trap after he and his wife appeared on the front page of several glossy magazines. Macron’s marriage has been fodder for the gossip press. The son of two doctors, he grew up in the northern town of Amiens but his parents sent him away to Paris to finish high school in an attempt to break up his relationship with his school French teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, 20 years his senior. Macron and Trogneux stayed together and have now been married for nine years.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Macron with his wife Brigitte Trogneux. Photograph: Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images

François Miquet-Marty, head of Viavoice pollsters, said Macron’s popularity reflected a desire in France for a new generation of politicians. “He appears outside the system, but he’s also seen as competent and so not too much of a risk,” he said.



But he said there was a difficulty in Macron having no anchor either in a party, or in a constituency base or even in the type of voter he attracted, which tended to be more rightwing despite Macron being part of a leftwing government.

“His tone is more of reason than passion,” Miquet-Marty said. “In an economic crisis, that’s an advantage, but in a presidential campaign it might not be enough. To mobilise crowds and create a pro-Macron movement, it’s not just about rationalism, economic pragmatism and intellectualism. He’ll need passion to mobilise people and that’s not his natural register. He’s attempting to get round that, but the question is whether he can do that before the presidential election.”

Mathilde Sarda, a political science student who knocks on doors with questionnaires for Macron on Wednesdays and weekends, said: “I can see myself in what he says about the importance of hard work. I work three jobs to pay my way as a student. At 6am I’m up giving out free newspapers at a station, I have class, then I babysit in the evening. I like his idea that if you work hard it will pay off. At the start of term, I was finding it hard to get into studying. I went to see Emmanuel Macron speak at a citizens’ rally. He was talking about work, I went home and worked from noon until 8pm, I was so inspired.”