He was the outsider. He did not even have an established party behind him. Yet the fact that tens of millions of French voted for a neophyte to lead their country only shows the exasperation with the status quo and desperation that Marine Le Pen would represent

Emmanuel Macron, 39, is married to Brigitte Macron, 64, a school teacher whom he adores as well as relies on for political and spontaneous advice. In the stormy French realm of the romantic tradition, stretching all the limits and boundaries of relationships, and celebrating love and intimacy as a national landmark of private celebration, they make an ideal couple, with Macron as a fabulous step-father to her three children. In the atmosphere of permissive patriarchy and xenophobia which is stalking large parts of the world, theirs’ is a love story which begins with an opera and is still going strong like a classical symphony. It’s a textbook case of an impossibility turned into a dream sequence. For the French people, and many in the European Union, this is an ‘Ode to Joy’, as refined and as liberating as Beethoven’s great classic of great joy.

Truly, the world needed this sublime rupture when hate politics, racism, sexism, mass phobia and strange insecurities stalk part of the Western world, as much as the middle-east and our sub-continent.

Between Brexit and Donald Trump, or the rise of fundamentalism and Islamic terror in the Middle-east, Macron, a centrist, has shown the middle path to the world, and has consolidated the liberal and democratic voices led by Angela Merkel in Germany, a Christian Democrat, and stretching across from Netherlands and Austria to Greece and Spain. The marching song of the jackboots of the Neo-Nazis has been finally stopped in Paris, even as the French, from the rich to the poor, in a spectrum of many colours, voted for an unlikely candidate in Macron, who was not really in the race in the beginning and who was pitted against the fascist rise of Le Pen, a scary and dangerous phenomena in Europe fighting with terrorism and the phobias against immigrants. No wonder, both Barack Obama and Merkel, among other democratic world leaders, backed Macron.

In the troubled times before the election rounds in France, with Neo-Nazis gaining ground in a spectacular sign of the success of hate politics and isolationist politics, very similar to the shrill electoral campaign of Trump, the Brexit, and the Right-wing in countries like Netherlands (where too they were defeated after a huge high and upsurge in the beginning), the far-Left candidate in France was cutting into Macron’s vote and support base. Why is the Left yet again making this terrible mistake, even while the fascists were on a surge? Have they not learned the lessons of history, the World War II, Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust, and in recent times, from the defeat of the Labour Party in Britain?

Wrote the legendary Yanis Varoufakis, former Marxist finance minister in Greece and a great intellectual, who resigned in the wake of ‘austerity’ measures being forced down the throat of Greece, in ‘Le Monde’ of Paris: “I refuse to be part of a generation of progressive Europeans who could prevent Marine Le Pen from winning the French presidency, but did not do so,” Varoufakis wrote. “Is Marine Le Pen really a less unacceptable option than her father?” he wrote, referring to Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was thrown out of the Front National Party by Marine for his anti-Semitic statements. “Is Emmanuel Macron worse, from the Left’s point of view, than Jacques Chirac in 2002? If this isn’t the case, then why do certain leaders from the Left today refuse to support Macron against Le Pen? For me, it’s a veritable mystery.”

Thankfully, despite appeals by Marine Le Pen to Left supporters and the disgruntled working class to vote for her party, most of them voted for Macron or stayed away. The middle path, despite the initial hiccups, stayed its course.

Since then, there has been a wave of celebration being marked in Europe, and for the backers of a united Europe, even as Macron is being compared to the dashing, liberal and young Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, in an era where Obama is being sorely missed. Obama himself celebrated his victory, even as South Korea elected a liberal dissenter and human rights activist as president. Clearly, the world is not really getting Trumped all along, despite the best wishes of the xenophobic dream.

The centrist president has remarkably chosen a cabinet which stretches from the Left to the Right, with the new ministers outshining each other in terms of their professional track record and their impressive CVs. In a unique spectacle of gender balance, there are 9 women and 9 men in a cabinet of 18, including a female Olympic champion as sports minister. Their photo-op after the swearing in ushered in yet another era of a refreshing diversity for the world to see, as much as the high level of competence and academic achievement. Only time will prove if they can stand up to the great expectations.

Macron’s high profile meeting with Merkel soon after has set the trend for a realm of liberal synthesis in Europe. Merkel has braved anti-incumbency and internal criticism to accept more than one million refugees from Syria and the Middle-east in Germany. She has stood her ground and gained in stature consequent to her brave, steadfast and magnanimous position. She, once again, proved to the world, that history and the bad faith and bad memories of the past can be turned upside down with sheer willpower, as a large number of Germans came out on the streets to welcome the marooned refugees. She has proved, indeed, that it is not really the guilt of the past, the unimaginable crimes of the Holocaust and the gas chambers when millions of Jews were killed in the concentration camps, but it is the optimism, openness, and bigheartedness of the present, which will open new doors of perception, a new world order, and a united Europe which stands for liberal and democratic ideas. And, mind you, Merkel is not a Leftist. She is as centrist or right-of-the-centre as Christian Democrats can be. And, yet, she has chosen to tread the offbeat path and taken a tangible risk.

Macron, clearly, will be following her footsteps, even as he does a tightrope walk in a critical economy, with the country still recovering from the wounds of deadly terrorist attacks on ordinary citizens. He has to be as tough and flexible as he can be in the balancing act so as to prevent terrorist attacks, as much as to consolidate the French position against the Neo-Nazis in France, as well as in support of the new paradigm shifts in the European Union dynamic of a capitalism in crisis. Even as Brexit seems to score a potential victory in neighbouring Britain, Macron will still mark a refreshing change as the new French symbol of liberalism. With Merkel and others in the EU, he will certainly bring a new language of consensus and inclusiveness, as a new political synthesis in a conflict-ridden and troubled world.

Certainly, his wife and his love story will be an advantage he will cherish. As the metaphor goes, in the beginning, was love. At this moment, undoubtedly, there is no end to this love story