Valérie Pécresse: the ‘bulldozer’ who would be France’s first female president

Her supporters call her Emmanuel Macron's worst nightmare, but she faces a tough task to unseat him

When Valerie Pecresse crossed rural France this summer, visiting farms and villages to escape what she called her grotesquely unfair image as a blond bourgeoise" from Versailles, she promised to smash the French Republic's glass ceiling. I will be the first female president of France," she told meeting halls to cheers.

Since Emmanuel Macron won the presidency in 2017 as a shock outsider with no election experience and a party put together in a few months, French politics has thrived on novelty. Pecresse's supporters say her status as a woman is refreshingly new and makes her Macron's worst nightmare.