{"id":34534,"date":"2017-05-12T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/macron-s-party-unveils-rwanda-born-candidate-for\/"},"modified":"2017-05-12T15:30:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T15:30:37","slug":"macron-s-party-unveils-rwanda-born-candidate-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/macron-s-party-unveils-rwanda-born-candidate-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron\u2019s party unveils Rwanda-born candidate for French parliamentary polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

{French president-elect Emmanuel Macron\u2019s party on Thursday unveiled more than 400 candidates who will stand in parliamentary elections in June, with half of them newcomers to politics and half of them women.}<\/p>\n

It includes Herve Berville, aged 27, a Rwandan-born economist adopted at the age of four in 1994 by a French family in Cote d\u2019Armor, Brittany, the constituency where he will stand.<\/p>\n

He embodies \u201cthe renewal\u201d desired by Macron. A graduate of Science-Po Lille and the London School of Economics, he worked for the French Development Agency in Mozambique and then as a researcher at Stanford University in California.<\/p>\n

Pro-Europe centrist Macron, 39, was elected on Sunday after promising a \u201crevolution\u201d that would bring fresh faces into France\u2019s stale political landscape and end the pattern of power alternating between traditional parties.<\/p>\n

His newly renamed grassroots movement, La Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move), founded only 13 months ago, revealed 428 out of 577 candidates for the parliamentary polls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aim to build a majority for change and to win an absolute majority in parliament,\u201d party secretary general Richard Ferrand told a news conference.<\/p>\n

Macron had promised that half would be newcomers, meaning a diverse range of figures from business, public service, activist groups and academia will get a chance to seek elected office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe promise of renewal is fulfilled,\u201d Ferrand said, adding that the average age of the candidates was 46 \u2014 compared with 60 in the current national assembly.<\/p>\n

On the tricky position of whether to accept former Socialist prime minister Manuel Valls, Ferrand said the party had not selected him, but would not field a rival against him in his south of Paris seat.<\/p>\n

Valls, a friend-turned-foe of Macron\u2019s from their time in government from 2014-2016, had asked to be selected on Tuesday, but said he welcomed news that Macron\u2019s movement would not oppose him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it will be as a free man, yet with a strong political identity \u2026 republican, progressive, of the left, that I act,\u201d said the former premier, urging people \u201cwho want the new president of the republic to succeed\u201d to vote for him.<\/p>\n

Other successful bids came from a woman fighter pilot who will run in eastern France and a man born in Rwanda who was adopted in France at the age of four and will contest a seat in Brittany.<\/p>\n

{{\u2013 Appeal to the right \u2013}}<\/p>\n

The nomination process is a balancing act for Macron and represents major risks for his presidency, which will begin formally on Sunday when he takes over from Socialist Francois Hollande.<\/p>\n

Without his own parliamentary majority, Macron will find it hard to push through his planned reforms of the labour market, pensions, unemployment benefits or education.<\/p>\n

Many of his newcomers will also face seasoned politicians with long careers and local networks of activists and supporters.<\/p>\n

And there is also the risk of scandal if anyone with a chequered history slips through the vetting process of the more than 19,000 applications sent online since January.<\/p>\n

Ferrand said each candidate had been interviewed and had declared not to have a criminal record or to have been disqualified for any function in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur movement has done everything possible to make sure that the candidates chosen respect our values,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The president-elect is a left-leaning liberal and was a senior adviser to Hollande before being named economy minister during the latter\u2019s unpopular term.<\/p>\n

But from the list are 214 candidates who are already politicians, including familiar faces from the Socialist Party and from the centrist MoDem party, headed by Macron ally Francois Bayrou.<\/p>\n

There are none, however, from the rightwing Republicans party, according to its secretary general Bernard Accoyer, but Ferrand left the door ajar for some of them to join in the next week.<\/p>\n

Some 148 constituencies \u2014 not including Valls\u2019 area \u2014 remain open.<\/p>\n

Macron, a former investment banker who has never held elected office, faces other tricky decisions this week.<\/p>\n

The biggest among them is his choice for prime minister, who will head the government until at least the parliamentary elections on June 11 and 18 and perhaps beyond.<\/p>\n

The choice will send a strong signal about Macron\u2019s intentions, and he has promised to pick someone with past experience of parliament and capable of managing a majority. His declared preference is for a woman.<\/p>\n

Amid feverish speculation in the French media \u2014 will he pick a loyal supporter or someone from the rightwing Republicans? \u2014 nothing has leaked from his small group of aides.<\/p>\n

The political consequences of Macron\u2019s victory are still being felt, with the Socialists fighting for relevance and the Republicans eager to become the main political force in parliament after the June elections.<\/p>\n

\"Macron\u2019s<\/figure>\n

[Macron\u2019s party unveils Rwanda-born candidate for French parliamentary polls->https:\/\/www.independent.co.ug\/macrons-party-unveils-rwanda-born-candidate-french-parliamentary-polls\/]<\/p>\n

Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{French president-elect Emmanuel Macron\u2019s party on Thursday unveiled more than 400 candidates who will stand in parliamentary elections in June, with half of them newcomers to politics and half of them women.} It includes Herve Berville, aged 27, a Rwandan-born economist adopted at the age of four in 1994 by a French family in Cote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34534"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34534"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}