The party has received and filtered through some 15,000 applications submitted online since 19 January, a representative of the movement said. The movement only interviewed 1,700 of the applicants. Half of the candidates will be women.
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Another candidate is the former fighter pilot Marion Buchet, 35, who was tapped to run in the eastern Meurthe-et-Moselle constituency.
However, pollsters say Macron has not won the election on a wave of popularity, as surveys show 43% of people voted for him, just to block Le Pen. She said one of her main motives for launching into politics under Macron’s banner is fighting the rise in France of the political extremes. The initials of his new party, LRM, equal those of the neo-Gaullist Les Républicains, plus an “M” for “Macron”.
Of the candidates unveiled Thursday, 2 percent were jobseekers, he said.
“There are those who want to stop us, who are ready to do anything”, he said. Macron’s election, like the Brexit vote, is a push against the European status quo, and if the EU can not see that they need to change, then they might be “plunged into servitude”.
Macron’s center-right ally Francois Bayrou signaled he was not happy with the list of candidates. “Draghi has been dovish so far but if he changes his tone, then we could see a change of tide”, said Kyosuke Suzuki, director of forex at Societe Generale. The “En Marche!” team rejected his overtures.
Macron, a former investment banker who has never held elected office, faces other tricky decisions this week.
Earlier this week, Mr Valls rashly declared his intention to stand on the En Marche! ticket, without first making sure that Mr Macron’s party wanted him.
He now needs a parliamentary majority to press on with his plans to cut state spending, boost investment and create jobs to revitalise the French economy and place it at the heart of a modernised European Union.
Valls, thought to be disliked by many LREM insiders, had taken a gamble by saying he wanted to run on Macron’s ticket, apparently without seeking private assurances that he would be selected.
“While the euro also slid back on some profit-taking the losses were partly as a result of a strong rebound in the USA dollar as a number of Fed policymakers continued to make optimistic noises on the U.S. economy”. “I really hope France seizes this opportunity”.
So LRM will field only 576 candidates for 577 seats. The movement already announced 14 candidates.
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“Clearly it (the euro) is off the overnight highs and I think this is purely because the win that we had in France was so well priced in”, said Jane Foley, currency strategist with Rabobank in London. It was like watching a piece of Ikea furniture take form from a cardboard box; democracy in a kit.
