Macron takes charge of divided France as youngest president

Bloomberg

Emmanuel Macron became the youngest president of France on Sunday, leading a country where economic malaise and security concerns drove extremist parties to their highest-ever scores in this year’s election.
Macron is the eighth directly elected president of the Fifth Republic, after assuming the role in a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris. “For decades France has doubted itself,” Macron said in his inaugural speech, making one of his main tasks “to bring self-confidence back to the French.”
The new head of state takes charge of continental Europe’s leading military power and second-largest economy as both an outsider and an insider. The 39-year-old benefited from the electorate’s desire for fresh faces and solutions, as the first president in the modern era to be elected without the support of France’s two main traditional parties. But he was his predecessor Francois Hollande’s economic adviser for more than two years and is deeply familiar with the administration’s inner workings.
“Most presidents land in the Elysee Palace with no idea how it functions, and they learn on the job,” said Patrick Weil, a historian and political scientist with the CNRS research center in Paris. “Macron has worked there a couple years, was even the deputy chief of staff. He knows the corridors of the Elysee and how it works.