Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for the French Presidency has been gathering momentum, as the favourite to take the Élysée Palace in May, Republican candidate Francois Fillon, became mired in a corruption scandal that could deal a deathly blow to his candidacy. The antithesis to Trump and Brexit, could a Macron victory mark the start of a progressive fightback against reactionary nationalism?

Macron, a 39-year-old ex-investment banker, has never held elected office. President Francois Hollande nominated him to be his economy minister in 2014. After becoming frustrated at Hollande’s inability to reform the labour market, Macron resigned in November to create “En Marche” (On the Move/Forward), a personality cult cum social movement cum political party. Macron says the movement transcends the traditional left-right divide; he wants the party to run progressive National Assembly candidates from across the political spectrum. The movement’s first rally in Paris attracted over 10,000 people. Since November Macron has gone from ten to twenty percent in the polls and is now tying with Fillon for second place in the first round of voting. The one that makes it to the second round is expected to go on to comfortably defeat far-right candidate Marine Le Pen on the 7th of May.

Macron is fortunate that the Socialists and the Republicans in France have both moved away from the centre, alienating swing voters. Republican and self-confessed Thatcherite Francois Fillon, has promised sweeping austerity and to slash France’s public sector, as well as banning the headscarf on university campuses. Fillon’s campaign has been hit by a corruption scandal dubbed “Penelopegate” after it was revealed he had been paying his wife as his parliamentary assistant from 1998 to 2013 for work for which there is no evidence she ever did. The misappropriation of funds totals close to a million euros. Fillon started his career in government in 1993 as Higher Education minister and went on to become Nicolas Sarkozy’s prime minister in 2007. Sarkozy had been expected to win the Republican nomination, but after pledging to overhaul the open-borders Schengen agreement and a campaign financing corruption scandal, he failed to make it past the conservative party’s second round of voting.

This presidential election is the first in the history of the fifth republic in which the incumbent president has not stood for re-election. The deeply unpopular Francois Hollande, who became president in 2012, promising to be “Mr. Normal”, ran on a platform of hard left economic policies such as a 75% wealth tax on the super-rich. As the economy continued to stagnate, he changed course and became pro-business, alienating his support base amongst the grassroots left. Though he claims success in hosting the 2015 Paris Climate deal, he also presided over three major terrorist attacks at the Charlie Hebdo offices, in Paris, and in Nice. His colourful personal life also became a major scandal in 2014 went it his affair with actress Julie Gayet was revealed. His wife Valerie Trierweiler divorced him, and told the media Hollande believed poor people were “toothless” further destroying his “Mr. Normal” persona. Macron also has a somewhat unconventional personal life. His wife, 20 years his elder, used to be his school teacher, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “teacher’s pet”.

In Hollande’s place the socialists have nominated Benoit Hammon. He proposes reducing the working week from 35 to 32 hours and supports a universal income program estimated to cost 350 billion euros, as well as a tax on robots. With parallels to Jeremy Corbyn, the French socialist party looks set for five or more years in the wilderness and a possible split with the centrist wing of the party which had supported Hollande’s prime minister Blairite Manuel Valls for president. Vall’s loss of the socialist nomination was an immediate boost to Macron, who now takes possession of the centre ground.

Asides from Macron, the main focus of this election has been on Mareen Le Pen, far-right leader of the Front National. She is likely to win the first round of voting, making it the first time an FN candidate has made it to the second round since her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2003. Since taking over as leader Mareen has tried to transform the FN from the toxic image of her father’s “neoliberal club” into a populist anti-immigration movement, leading to her invariably being compared with both UKIP and Donald Trump. At a conference in Lille last weekend she dropped bringing back the death penalty from her party’s manifesto. Though unlikely to win if Macron makes it to the second round, hovering at around 35% in the polls, she has said a one-to-one race with Macron would be a “gift” — “you couldn’t dream of a clearer, total clash of ideas”. She sees herself as a patriot whilst Macron is a globalist.

Macron and Le Pen’s differences are indeed stark. Macron is unashamedly pro-European. In a speech to a crowd of 4,500 in Lille, a traditional Socialist stronghold, Macron hailed the EU saying “Europe is us! Brussels is us! We need Europe!” With support coming predominantly from young people, he speaks to a new global generation who identify as European as well as French. His victory would signal a revival for Europe and a rejection of reactionary politics. In a second speech to Lille last weekend, this time attended by 8,000, he promised to increase defence spending and sought closer cooperation with Germany, while distancing himself from the United States, mocking Trump’s border wall by likening it to French defences in 1940 that failed to stop the Nazi invasion. Pro-business, and socially liberal, he is in favour of religious toleration and rejects banning Muslim veils, instead choosing to focus on improving women’s rights and protection for children at a time when many European nations are considering burka bans as a succour to nationalism.

Macron has said that as a “matter of sovereignty” he wants to prevent the City of London ‘passporting’ financial services after Brexit, unless the UK pays into the EU budget and accepts European Court of Justice rulings, which he thinks British Eurosceptics are unlikely to accept. He also will give no ground on the right to freedom of movement, believing than any concessions would lead to the disintegration of Europe. Progressives on the continent will be glad to see that 2016 might just have been the exception rather than the trend. However, as Macron, if he wins, will come to power during the article 50 negotiation period progressives in Britain are left conflicted; do we want a strong Europe or a soft Brexit?