At a stadium rally in Lyon, Emmanuel Macron, the maverick centrist outsider who has become a leading contender in the French presidential race, lowered his normally fervent tone and looked earnestly out at the crowd. He has staked his campaign on a personal crusade to reinvent what he calls the “vacuous” and failing French political system, while refusing to be defined by any fixed ideology. Macron left the civil service for the Rothschild investment bank, where his role was the art of persuasion and brokering deals. “Poverty and inequality is something he wants to bring an answer to but not necessarily the traditional answer of the French left that is redistribution and benefits payments. Macron broke ranks, insisting the government would be better off trying to understand and deal with why French gunmen had killed French citizens.

Source: The Guardian February 17, 2017 13:30 UTC