Emmanuel Macron just won a vote he could not afford to lose.
French lawmakers confirmed Emmanuel Moulin as the next Bank of France chief on Wednesday. The result was close enough to be uncomfortable.
A majority on the relevant committees voted against him. The count was 58 out of 110, or 52.7%.
Under French rules, that was not enough to block him.
To block a Bank of France pick, 60% of the joint finance committees have to vote no. Opposition parties got close, but couldn't clear the bar.
Several parties argued Moulin was too tied to Macron to run the bank with real independence. He served as Macron's chief of staff before taking over France's Treasury in 2020.
Moulin pushed back at his hearing. He told senators he was standing before them "as a free man, a public servant who has served the state for 30 years."
He stressed he would act with full independence from both the government and private interests.
Center and right-leaning lawmakers later rallied behind the pick. They wanted to spare Macron a public loss in his final year.
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The Bank of France chief sits on the ECB's rate-setting council. That council sets rates for every country that uses the euro.
So Moulin is not just watching over French banks. He helps set the cost to borrow for the eurozone's biggest economies, including Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Moulin is also a seasoned crisis hand. He helped Nicolas Sarkozy through Europe's debt crisis.
He worked with Christine Lagarde - now the ECB chief - back when she ran France's finance ministry.
As Treasury head, he steered France through COVID, inflation shocks, and EU budget fights. Before that, he ran the office of finance minister Bruno Le Maire.
The takeaway: investors get a steady crisis hand. But his ties to Macron will keep raising flags about how free he is to push back.
The ECB meets June 11. Moulin has already laid out his test for that call.
He is watching three things. Those are the inflation outlook, core inflation, and wages.
He said that if the Iran energy shock looks "persistent and large-scale," the ECB will need to act.
For French banks, Moulin is a known face from his Treasury role. For ECB peers, he is a fresh seat at the table.
Moulin is 57. He brings 30 years of public service to the job.
The Bank of France itself is 226 years old. It sets bank rules for France and weighs in on euro area policy.
For investors, the next test arrives at the June 11 meeting.
A pick the opposition tried hard to stop is now one of the most powerful voices in Europe.
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