Paris — On Christmas Eve 2015, with France reeling from terrorist attacks in Paris a month before, Emmanuel Macron sent a letter to the president and prime minister, urging sweeping measures to tackle French inequalities that he believed were fuelling extremism. The economy minister, who had just celebrated his 38th birthday, did not expect his bosses to heed his advice, according to aides who described the letter to Reuters. Macron had been feuding with Prime Minister Manuel Valls for months and grown increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of change under President François Hollande. But the letter was a signal that he was preparing to go his own way, busting the constraints of French establishment politics. For weeks, Macron and his aides had been discussing the launch of a grassroots movement that would transcend France’s long-entrenched left-right political divide. They had conducted a study of foreign movements, including centrist Ciudadanos and far-left Podemos from Spain,...
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