Interview with Ismael Emelien: the man behind Macron’s rise

Behind the biggest recent upsets in Western politics lurk two influential advisors: one a scruffy far-right American ideologue who has become a household name; the other a clean-cut Frenchman just over 30 who has always avoided the limelight – until now.

Without Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign boss in the final stages of the election, the US president might be promoting golf resorts and picking fights on Twitter full-time now, not running the United States. While in France, Emmanuel Macron’s extraordinary election victory in 2017, six months after Trump’s, would not have been possible without the discreet work of Ismael Emelien.

Trump and Macron are often portrayed as the ying and yang of world politics, the Trump and ‘anti-Trump’, but there is symmetry in their success. As men – in age, temperament, and politics – they couldn’t be more different. But they were both carried to power on the same currents churning Western politics.