Macron has won the French election - now he has to find a way to govern

Having only formed his En Marche! party one year ago, France's Emmanuel Macron accomplished the formidable task of being elected France's next president and will be the youngest ever holder of the role.

The 39-year-old is fresh from defeating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in one of France's most historic elections – but the hard work is just starting for Macron.

Now he will learn that it takes more than one person to run a country and that he will need to rely on his party members to turn his vision for France into tangible laws and legislation.

There is one problem, however. The president-elect and his En Marche! movement have zero members in France's National Assembly.

Macron is in a unique position. After France's two traditional leading parties ­– the Republicans and the Socialists ­– bounced out of the first round of elections in third and fifth place, no other leader has had to build a government almost entirely from scratch.

With the next National Assembly elections taking place in June, Macron is now under the hammer to find candidates to run for the country's 577 seats.

After sifting through more than 19,000 applicants, En Marche! is now most of the way there and on Thursday (11 May), it announced a slate of 428 candidates.

The list makes for interesting reading. Among them are a female fighter pilot who served in Syria, a female bullfighter and a mathematics genius who won the Fields medal in 2010. Others are farmers or simply unemployed.

Announcing the slate, party secretary-general Richard Ferrand said: "Our candidates signal the permanent return of the citizen to the heart of our political life."

Like Macron, however, more than half of those candidates have never held elected office before.

Their mission: to deliver France's next president the parliamentary majority that he needs to be effective. Whether France will take to the candidates or not, however, is yet to be seen.