With the Socialist party turning sharply left, and the centre-right stuck with a wounded candidate, the head of the youthful new movement En Marche! certainly has a route to the Elysée Palace, but can he beat Marine Le Pen?

What’s the basic biography?

Emmanuel Macron, 39, is the son of a doctor and a neurology professor. Raised in the Picardy town of Amiens, he studied philosophy (you can tell from his speeches), then followed the classic postgrad route of France’s political and business elite, through Sciences Po and the École Nationale d’Administration.

Briefly a rising star in the civil service, he bought himself out of his government contract and joined Rothschild & Co – reportedly making around €2m (£1.7m) as a thrusting young investment banker – before being appointed a senior adviser by François Hollande in 2012 and, two years later, economy minister. Macron resigned last summer and launched his campaign in November.

Unknown to the public barely two years ago, never elected, no longer a member of a political party and defining himself as “neither left nor right”, he is now – according to polls – the favourite to become France’s next president. Oh, and his wife, Brigitte Trogneux, used to be his French teacher, and is 20-odd years his senior.

What are his politics?

Macron presents himself as the energetic outsider, determined to break what he calls the “complacency and vacuity” of the French political system. At the head of a youthful movement, En Marche! (Let’s Go!), he wants to “re-forge France’s politics, culture and ideology”.

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So he’s a radical?

He says he is “of the left”, but keen to unite people from across the spectrum, including the right. Economically liberal and pro-business, Macron was tasked by Hollande with opening up France’s sclerotic economy; the loi Macron reforms that bear his name were so unpopular they had to be forced through by decree. But he is also fiercely progressive on social issues – eager to stimulate growth and free up business while protecting the country’s strong social safety net.

In the hands of a political establishment interested only in self-preservation, he has said, the system “has ceased to protect those it should protect”. In a country where stubborn unemployment, entrenched inequalities, increasing opposition to globalisation and the ongoing terror threat have robbed many of all confidence in mainstream politics, it is a message that resonates. Macron’s rallies are huge: 12,000 people in Paris, 4,000 in Lille.

Where does the race stand today?

On the left, Hollande – faced with the lowest approval ratings in the Fifth Republic – is not standing for re-election. Instead, the Socialist candidate is Benoît Hamon, a radical, “real left” former education minister, who unexpectedly beat former prime minister Manuel Valls in the party primaries.

On the right, the socially conservative, ultra-liberal former prime minister François Fillon emerged victorious in November, capturing the les Républicains nomination in equally unforeseen fashion, ahead of a former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the long-standing favourite, Alain Juppé, another former premier.

But Fillon is now embroiled in a widening corruption scandal that could well cost him his candidacy, accused of paying his wife and children not far short of €1m of public money to work for him as parliamentary assistants – work that investigators suspect may never have been carried out.

Aren’t you forgetting someone?

On the far-right, of course, lurks Front National leader Marine Le Pen, riding high on the populist, anti-politics-as-usual tide that produced Brexit and propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Polls predict she will advance to the run-off of the two-round election, but will then be defeated.

So ... can Macron win?

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This is one of the most unpredictable French presidential races in recent history. With the Socialist party making a sharp turn to the left, and the centre-right stuck with a badly wounded candidate who is sinking in the polls and may have to be replaced, Macron certainly has a route to the Elysée Palace.

The most recent poll shows Le Pen in the lead in the first round, on 26-27%, with Macron trailing by about three points and Fillon, in the wake of Penelopegate (as the scandal is known), sharply down in third place at around 20% – meaning he would not make it to the second round. According to the same poll, Macron would comfortably beat Le Pen in the run-off.

But?

But we are still three months from polling day – and given the number of upsets in this race so far, we would be well-advised to make no assumptions. We must be wary, too, of opinion polls. And remember: no candidate in French political history has won the presidency without the backing of an established party. So President Macron is far from a foregone conclusion.

The outcome, in fact, is likely to depend on whether Fillon can recover (and if not, who will replace him); whether the shattered left can unite behind Hamon (or a far-left rival); and whether Macron can continue his remarkable rise (and survive the onslaught, from left and right, that will now come his way). This is not over yet.