Until just a few months ago, Emmanuel Macron was a minor figure in French national politics and relatively unknown to voters. On Sunday, he defeated far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in the countrys presidential election with a decisive lead.

Macrons rise is one of the more unpredictable aspects of an election campaign that has been mired in bizarre scandal and controversy. At 39 years old, he will be the youngest leader in modern French history, and its first to not come from an establishment party.

Macron is a former member of the Socialist Party who served as economy minister for just two years under President Francois Hollande, and was a banker for Rothschild & Company prior to entering politics. Before the presidential election, he had never run for elected office.

Despite Macrons lack of experience, his newly founded political movement, En Marche! or Onward! rapidly gained supporters. He took a radical message of criticizing Frances political class as ineffectual and corrupt, but applied it to a restrained centrist platform based mostly on moderate economic reforms. It was an odd combination, but these are odd times in French politics.

As support for the Socialist left crumbled and corruption allegations hobbled the conservative Republicans two parties that have made up Frances political establishment Frances presidential election campaign opened. On April 30, Macron and Le Pen made it through the first round of the vote, advancing to the runoff on May 7. The two rivals shared an outsider status, but had radically different visions for Frances future.

Le Pen had vowed to take France out of the eurozone and return to the franc as a national currency. She said shed hold a referendum on European Union membership, as well as introduce anti-Islam and anti-immigration policies. Mimicking the campaign of U.S. President Donald Trump , she promised to pursue a French first agenda, and her election would have been a devastating blow to the EU.

Macron, on the other hand, ran as a moderate reformer and called for France to take a leading role in reinvigorating the EU. He tried to pull usually polarized French politics to the center at a time when far-right populist parties across Europe are becoming increasingly prominent . His victory is a relief for pro-EU figures like German Chancellor Angela Merkel who have become frequent targets for the far-right amid the refugee crisis and Brexit.