Does Emmanuel Macron have a problem with smart women?

Of course they remember. The photo was taken on the stairs of Emmanuel Macron's campaign headquarters one morning in March 2017, a few weeks before the first round of the presidential election. Sixteen women, all devoted to the founder of En Marche!, had posed for Vanity Fair France, happy to finally be in the picture after toiling like crazy backstage. They saw victory looming, already imagined themselves to be part of the vanguard of power, carried by a 39-year-old man not quite like the others.

“I have always been more comfortable with the intelligence of women, the man who was to become head of state told us at the time. I am a late convert to feminism, but like all late converts, I am resolute. For the activists of the cause, the commitment was clear and the promise firm: the fight for gender equality was to become one of the major projects of the five-year term. And the concrete results would soon jump out in the eyes of the French.

Four and a half years later, what have become of our Macroniennes? On the phone, some seem a little embarrassed. "I keep all my friendship with the president but I would be unable to answer specific questions on his record in terms of feminism..." apologizes, very diplomatically, one of them. Well, let's do the count together. Of the sixteen photographed in March 2017, few have seen their hopes fulfilled: Marlène Schiappa, who has gone from the status of confidential blogger to that of twirling Minister Delegate for Citizenship, subscriber to feet in the dish and to TV shows; and Sibeth Ndiaye, communications adviser to candidate Macron, who became the highly contested government spokesperson who brutally blocked information from journalists, before being hired in July 2020 as secretary general of the interim group Adecco. For the rest... Some have made their way within the teams in power, with varying fortunes. Sophie Ferracci, whose husband was the president's wedding witness, remained chief of staff at the Ministry of Health for less than a year, before finding a job at the Caisse des dépôts. Clara Koenig followed Benjamin Griveaux as government spokesperson and today she manages Christophe Castaner's communication at the National Assembly. Aigline de Ginestous worked in the firm of Agnès Pannier-Runacher until March 2021, before joining the commercial real estate giant Unibail.