French president-elect takes first steps in transition

PARIS — Freshly elected to the French presidency, Emmanuel Macron now faces an equally difficult Act II: securing the parliamentary majority he needs to make good on his campaign promises to lift France out of economic gloom.

With legislative elections just five weeks away, the startup political movement the 39-year-old former investment banker began one year ago on his meteoric ride to become France’s youngest president lost no time Monday in girding for the crucial mid-June election battle.

The pomp of the ceremony, at the imposing Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris, immediately helped lend a presidential air to the previously untested leader who fought and won his first election.

The ceremony marked decades of peace in Western Europe, something Macron made a cornerstone of his campaign against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen’s brand of nationalist populism.

Le Pen campaigned for France to leave the 28-nation European Union and drop the shared euro currency in favor of reinstating a new French franc.

Sylvie Goulard, a French deputy to the European Parliament, said Macron would make Berlin his first official visit, with perhaps a stop to see French troops stationed abroad as well.