Can Macron show he has governed for all?
On the edge of one of Brittany’s poorest housing estates, a six-year-old girl worked on her hand-writing in class. Her teacher encouraged her, as 11 others sat at tables arranged into cosy nooks. “Every day I listen to each child read to me, I never managed that when I had 25 in a class,” said the teacher, Lucile. “I get to know each child individually and it’s so calm.”
It is in these primary school class-rooms of France’s most deprived neighbourhoods that the centrist president Emmanuel Macron wants his record in office to be considered.
When he came to power five years ago – a former banker who had served as economy minister under the left – he promised a “pragmatic” cherry-picking of
