French President Emmanuel Macron
Photo credit: Levon Bliss for Forbes
Today, exactly one year into the most audacious presidency France has ever seen, Emmanuel Macron has charmed Trump, cracked open stodgy labour laws and made the French look more business-friendly than ever. But it could have all been so different. Just a few years before becoming head of state, Macron was planning to exit politics and launch an education startup.
Sources close to Macron confirmed to Forbes that the former investment banker was exploring the market for education technology — or edtech, in industry parlance — in the summer of 2014.
His research took place during the weeks after he quit his post as deputy chief of staff in Francois Hollande’s government, and before he became Hollande's economy minister. From there it was a three-year fast track to the presidency.
No wonder the president, who recently got a standing ovation in the U.S. Congress, told Forbes in an April 2018 interview: “I think I understand entrepreneurs and risk-takers quite well.”
Back in 2014, Macron had invited people in academia and from the startup world to his office near Elysee Palace, to ask about the prospects of building his own education startup.
“He wanted to create something in the education market,” says one source who advised Macron at the time and did not want to be named. “At that point Macron was not well kno ..
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