Alain Garcia, an office worker in an energy company, unlocked his grey hatchback parked on a quiet street. “Welcome to the Macron-mobile,” he said.



Thousands of smiling election pictures of the centrist French presidential favourite beamed out from the backseat. At one point Garcia had 11,000 copies of Emmanuel Macron’s manifesto leaflets crammed into his family car which he uses for his daily commute. “I do sometimes worry a bit about the car’s suspension,” he said, slowing to go over a speedbump in Villeurbanne, a town whose diverse ethnic mix of housing estates and gentrification nudges up against the south-eastern city of Lyon.

While conventional political parties have local offices across France, Macron’s maverick, independent bid for president without a party means his campaign is largely being run from private apartments, family cars and gatherings around bistro tables by thousands of enthusiastic, unpaid volunteers, many of whom have never previously been involved in politics.

No one has ever attempted to win a modern French presidential election without a political party structure behind them. Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker who briefly served as economy minister under the Socialist president François Hollande, has never run for any kind of election before. He claims his “neither left nor right” campaign is a “revolution” to do away with the old political system and its parties.

But in the final few weeks before the 23 April first-round presidential vote, pressure is mounting on Macron’s grassroots volunteers. First they must consolidate a volatile and undecided potential electorate. Although polls show Macron in the lead, a significant number of his potential voters tend to be more wavering than other candidates’ solid base, including the far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen. Crucially, Macron must prove his fledgling movement of supporters can morph into a major political operation capable of winning enough seats in the parliamentary elections in June to allow him to govern and deliver his manifesto promises.

Macron’s movement, En Marche! (On the Move), was created less than a year ago, initially as a door-to-door operation in which volunteers asked the public what was wrong with France. Free to join online, it has more than 230,000 members. It is run more like a tech startup than a classic political party and uses sophisticated digital systems to crunch election data and pinpoint target voters. Without the financial pot of a standard political party, the movement is funded by donations – capped by law at €7,500 (£6,370) per person. Over €6.5m has been collected so far – the average donation is €250 or less. Macron has also taken out a personal loan of about €8m.

An activist hands out En Marche! leaflets in Quimper, western France. Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images

From the En Marche! headquarters in Paris, where young volunteers known by the English word “helpers” work on laptops, the final campaign push has been set out. Members – ranging from students and the unemployed to retired teachers and business leaders – still meet in committees across France to debate policy. But their focus is now on reaching a maximum of undecided voters in the next few weeks. They have been advised to use every conversation – in the bakery, on trains, with colleagues – and even host dinners at home. They should, as Macron does, always try to smile.

“There’s a freedom, there’s no hierarchy, it’s about spurring on your team of volunteers, it’s so much more human and we feel like we’re building something together,” said Garcia, 49, who preferred canvassing with En Marche! to his time canvassing for the rightwing Nicolas Sarkozy’s first presidential campaign 10 years ago. Garcia had become disillusioned with politics, but now coordinates 700 Macron volunteers in Villeurbanne.

“I joined because I don’t want the same old people running politics. We need change, people from civil society,” said Sophie Solmini, 44, a former Socialist party canvasser who had taken time off from her housing association job to volunteer for Macron “seven days a week from 7am to 2am” from her council flat.

Nearby, the city of Lyon has been described as the birthplace of “Macron mania”. Lyon’s mayor, Gérard Collomb, was one of the first major Socialist party figures to jump ship to Macron’s camp and campaign for him. But Macron faces a delicate balancing act. Although key political figures have rallied to him from the left and right, he has to ensure his movement is not swamped by politicians. He wants to avoid accusations that he is recycling the old political class.

“Classic political parties are solid, they have a structure, like the Prussian army,” said Bruno Bonnell, the tech entrepreneur and robot developer who coordinates En Marche! in Lyon. “We’re much more guerilla style. We’re fluid, we’re about fast action and a swift decision-making process. We’re surprisingly organised for what is essentially a huge magma of emotion.”

Bonnell, 58, who calls himself a “robot revolutionary”, has not worked on an election campaign before. He is symbolic of Macron’s promise to modernise and champion digital innovation. “Enough of cynicism and despair,” Bonnell said. “Macron embodies the new positive mindset to take France into the 21st century, because he’s young enough to understand what it’s all about.” Refuting criticism from political opponents that Macron is the candidate of the “happily globalised” elites of major cities, Bonnell, who described his roots as “working-class left”, had been out canvassing in small peripheral areas of the Rhône where Le Pen’s far-right vote is growing. “We’re living a digital revolution. There is no reason for that to scare us,” he told a rally of largely over-50s in Villeurbanne.

Macron speaking on the campaign trail in Marseille. Photograph: Aop.Press/Zu/Rex/Shutterstock

Macron’s test is to convince voters that En Marche! can transform itself into a parliamentary force. All recent French presidential elections have been followed directly by parliamentary elections that delivered the winner’s party a majority of MPs. Without that majority, the president’s hands would be tied. Macron’s opponents are attacking him by warning he could usher in an uncertain period of messy coalition. The Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon said Macron would mean an “ungovernable” France.

Macron said French voters would “logically” have given him a parliamentary majority if he won the presidency. He wants to field En Marche! candidates in all 577 seats in the June legislative elections. He insists half his candidates will be women – in winnable seats – and half must be newcomers from civil society. The others, politicians, must run under a single Macron ticket, not for their previous parties.

On Lyon’s shopping streets, the high rate of undecided voters was clear. “I’m hesitating between [the rightwing] François Fillon and Macron,” said Colette, 69, a retired accountant. “The scandals around Fillon are putting me off, but it’s the manifesto that counts. I’ll end up writing out a list of pros and cons ...”

Eric, 41, worked in a department store and felt security was the most important election issue. He took a Macron leaflet from a volunteer but shrugged. “I’m fed up with the lot of them, I don’t think any of them can be trusted. I do want to vote, but I’ll decide at the last minute.”