Emmanuel Macron, the 25th president of France, positions himself as a liberal and a centrist. When he launched his party En Marche in April 2016, he said that it was "neither right nor left". By March 2017, Macron stated that he and his party were now "both right and left". Prior to the establishment of En Marche, some observers described him as a social liberal, while others called him a social democrat, having been a member of the Socialist Party. During his time in the Socialist Party, he supported the party's centrist wing, whose political stance has been associated with Third Way policies advanced by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schröder, and whose leading spokesman has been former prime minister Manuel Valls.

Macron is accused by some members of the yellow vest movement of being an "ultra-liberal president for the rich". Macron was dubbed the "president of the very rich" by former Socialist French president François Hollande. In the past, Macron called himself a "socialist"; since August 2015, he labelled himself as a "centrist liberal", refusing observations by critics that he is an "ultra-liberal" economically. During a visit to Vendée in August 2016, he said that he was not a socialist and merely served in a "left-leaning government". He has called himself both a "man of the left" and "liberal" in his book Révolution. Macron has since been labelled an economic neoliberal with a socio-cultural liberal viewpoint.

Macron created the centrist political party En Marche in an attempt to create a party that could cross partisan lines. Speaking on why he formed En Marche, he said there is a real divide in France between "conservatives and progressives". His political platform during the 2017 French presidential election contained stances from both the left and right, which led to him being positioned as a radical centrist by Le Figaro. Macron rejected centrist as a label, although political scientist Luc Rouban compared his platform to former centrist president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who is the only other French president to have been elected on a centrist platform.

Macron has been compared to Giscard d'Estaing due to their ability to win a presidential election on a centrist platform and for their similar governing styles. Both were inspectors of finance, were given responsibilities based around tax and revenue, both were very ambitious about running for the position of president, showing their keenness early in their careers, and both were seen as figures of renewal in French political life. In 2016, d'Estaing said himself that he was "a little like Macron". Observers have noted that while they are alike ideologically, d'Estaing had ministerial experience and time in Parliament to show for his political life while Macron had never been elected before.

Macron has advocated in favour of the free market and reducing the public-finances deficit. He first publicly used the word liberal to describe himself in a 2015 interview with Le Monde. He added that he is "neither right nor left" and that he advocates a "collective solidarity". During a visit to the Puy du Fou in Vendée with Philippe de Villiers in August 2016, he stated: "Honesty compels me to say that I am not a socialist." Macron explained that he was part of the "left government" because he wanted to "serve the public interest" as any minister would. In his book Révolution, published in November 2016, Macron presents himself as both a "leftist" and a "liberal ... if by liberalism one means trust in man".

With his party En Marche, Macron's stated aim is to transcend the left–right divide in a manner similar to that of François Bayrou or Jacques Chaban-Delmas, asserting that "the real divide in our country ... is between progressives and conservatives". With the launch of his independent candidacy and his use of anti-establishment rhetoric, Macron has been labelled a populist by some observers, notably Valls, but Macron has rejected this term.

Macron is a supporter of the El Khomri law. He became the most vocal proponent of the economic overhaul of the country. Macron has stated that he wants to go further than the El Khomri law in reforming the labour code.

Macron is in favour of tax cuts. During the 2017 presidential election, Macron proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 33.3% to 25%. Macron also wanted to remove investment income from the wealth tax so that it is solely a tax on high-value property. Macron also wanted to exempt 18 million households from local residence tax, branding the tax as "unfair" during his 2017 presidential campaign.