New French President Emmanuel Macron, left, shakes hands with outgoing French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace. Photo / AP
New French President Emmanuel Macron, left, shakes hands with outgoing French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace. Photo / AP
Emmanuel Macron is a "war leader", according to a policeman who commanded operations against the Bataclan terrorists and is now preparing to do battle as a parliamentary candidate for the new French President's party.
Jean-Michel Fauvergue, an ex-paratrooper and martial arts expert who went into the Bataclan ahead of hisofficers to end the Isis massacre in 2015, is standing in a constituency in the eastern Paris suburbs. He was among hundreds of the party's candidates, half of whom are political novices, who attended a seminar on the art of campaigning in a museum near the Eiffel Tower.
Macron, who was inaugurated president last night, believes his presidential victory a week ago proves that candidates who, like him, have never before run for office, can win in the parliamentary elections next month. "He's a very good general and it's important to have a general," Fauvergue, 60, said. "I often describe him as a war leader because he's been able to create a whole political movement behind him in just a year, and because he's put together a political programme that takes into account all the problems facing French society."
Macron was due to take over the reins from outgoing President Francois Hollande, in a ceremony at the Elysee Palace. After holding private talks, Hollande was to leave the Elysee Palace and Macron sworn in.
For Fauvergue, who advised Macron on counter-terrorism policies, the leader's personality is a crucial element. "We're emotional in the police and we need a leader. We can go to the ends of the Earth with good leaders."
Fauvergue left his post as head of the Raid elite police unit following controversy over an operation in Saint-Denis in which the alleged ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed. After announcing that the police came under sustained Kalashnikov fire, it was discovered that the terrorists had only an automatic pistol and a suicide vest. But he remains an iconic figure who commanded operations during most of the terror attacks in France since 2015, and has a good chance of victory.
