Not just a new president, new faces for France’s parliament

Reporting from Paris —  A female fighter pilot, a farmer, a teacher, people out of work. They all applied for the job — and got it, among more than 19,000 people hoping to become candidates in June elections for the French parliament under the banner of President-elect Emmanuel Macron.

Renewing a political landscape long bogged down with out-of-touch parties and long-serving politicians was a central campaign promise and the eclectic mix of candidates speaks to Macron’s desire to pull the plug on a system he deems broken.

On Thursday, his Republic on the Move party announced an initial slate of 428 candidates for France’s 577-seat National Assembly. It was a potpourri of citizens, more than half of whom, like Macron, have never held elected office. Their shared goal: to deliver Macron the parliamentary majority he needs to govern effectively and pull France out of its economic doldrums and social funk.

The average age of the candidates who made the cut is 46 — compared to 60 for the outgoing assembly. Half are women and half are men. Only 5% — 24 — were lawmakers in the outgoing parliament, all Socialists.

“Our candidates signal the permanent return of the citizen to the heart of our political life,” party secretary-general Richard Ferrand said in announcing the partial slate.

Macron, a centrist upstart, won Sunday’s presidential election by a landslide, defeating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who had hoped to ride the wave of rising nationalism in Europe.

The French political landscape was upended by Sunday’s presidential race, which saw mainstream parties, including the Socialists who had governed for the past five years under outgoing President Francois Hollande, eliminated in favor of the untested Macron.

Macron himself parachuted into his first government position as economy minister in Hollande’s Socialist government from a job as an investment banker, and won election by offering something new.

His party’s parliamentary candidates’ atypical profiles show “a need to renew faces” in a country that has traditionally recycled its politicians for decades, said Macron’s spokesman, Benjamin Griveaux.