Outside the window, the flat landscape whizzes by under an overcast sky. In train car 23, seat 76, Emmanuel Macron shuffles two paperback-sized smartphones on the table and tries to explain something that he himself still doesn't fully understand: the phenomenon that is Emmanuel Macron.

Mr. Macron, why are you so popular?

"I have never striven to achieve this popularity." The answer comes a bit too abruptly.

It was not even two years ago that Macron was appointed France's minister for economics, industry and information technology, but he is, at least for the moment, the man of the hour in French politics. At age 38, Macron has the smooth face of a very young man, with harmonious, intelligent features. When he concentrates on something, as he does now, his eyes narrow slightly, "yeux de velours" -- velvet eyes -- as some articles in the French media describe them. It's an unusually gentle attribute for a politician, a sign of an equally unusual penchant that is attributed to him.

Macron says he has always openly stated what he thinks -- and endeavored to act accordingly. "People probably like sincerity and honesty," he says. Is he trying to justify his popularity? Is he trying to be coy?

Growing Popularity

It is odd. Even as the government he serves continues almost every week to sink to record new lows in opinion polls, Macron is riding a growing wave of popularity. Approval ratings for the most unpopular president of the French Fifth Republic, François Hollande, fluctuate between 11 and 13 percent, whereas roughly half of the French electorate thinks that Macron would make a good head of state.

Macron is an exceptional phenomenon in times of nationwide discord. He stands out starkly from the cabinet of overridingly colorless ministers, who often act just as haplessly as their president. Even the once-popular Prime Minister Manuel Valls is no longer particularly appreciated by the French and is widely seen as sullen and authoritarian.

By contrast, Macron can say what he wants and people still like him. He can rave about Europe, which he views as a major accomplishment, not an obsolete concept. And he can praise German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her refugee policy and explain why France cannot remain the way it is: paralyzed, stuck and depressed.

Indeed, this is yet another reason why his colleagues in the Socialist party cannot stand him. Some see him as too imposing and ambitious because he comments on issues that are outside his portfolio. For others, he is a "wolf in sheep's clothing," as a weekly magazine referred to him when he took office: a neoliberal in disguise who is determined to undermine the French welfare state. Since the launch in April of his own political movement, En Marche!, which means "Forward," many observers now believe he will seek to run in 2017 in a bid to become president at age 39.

On this particular day, traveling on the high-speed Thalys train bound from Paris to Brussels, Macron explains: "What motivates me is the idea of shaping my country's future. I believe we have to do many things very differently." He also repeats that the presidential election does not currently rank among his priorities.

But what is it that he actually wants? Is he looking to test whether his popularity in opinion polls can be turned into political capital? Does he want to see whether someone who is liked can also be elected?

Macron has potential as a new standard bearer. His youth alone is a sensation in a country that has been governed for decades by a group of politicians who all seem to look alike, with the same faces, the same names and the same résumés. He succeeds over and over in striking the right tone. He can sound conciliatory, but also brash and demanding. But he always remains polite and never raises his voice.

But how, and for whom, will he put this potential to use? Macron has rapidly risen to rather dizzying heights, and this is a reflection of his success -- and of how far he could fall again. But it doesn't make him humble. In a recent speech, he somewhat shamelessly compared himself to Jeanne d'Arc, locked in a fearless battle to promote new ideas and overcome ossified structures.

A Paralyzing Minority

On this particular morning in the train, Macron is wearing a dark blue suit that is perfectly tailored, as always. Shortly before the train pulls into the station in Brussels, he asks his adviser for a necktie and ties a Windsor knot without missing a beat as he continues to speak. France, says Macron, may appear to be stuck, but his country is not incapable of reform: "There are a number of Frances," and most French want to live in a modern country, he says, adding that "those who are currently protesting constitute a small minority."

The problem is that until now this minority has managed to paralyze the country. When daycare teachers and garbage collectors strike again, the demonstrations callously put a choke hold on daily life. There is currently discontent everywhere, with protesters clamoring throughout the country. Recent strikes in refineries sparked a fuel shortage, causing filling stations to close. Air France pilots have threatened to go on strike, along with air-traffic controllers and employees of the state railway, SNCF. Teachers are also up in arms. Resistance against all types of change is primarily orchestrated in state-owned companies and in the public sector.

Today's France appears to have lost sight of the real issues facing the country. Indeed, what began as a protest against the government's labor market reforms has morphed into an absurd power struggle, the sole purpose of which seems to be to deal the most severe possible blow to the opposite side. The government has long since admitted making mistakes in its approach. It has gutted the reform law to such an extent that now all concerned parties are dissatisfied, including those who initially praised the initiative.

As for Macron, he feels that this reform doesn't go far enough, and he has said so publicly, loud and clear, right in the midst of the nationwide turmoil. This raised the ire of his political colleagues, once again. The prime minister, his boss, called him to task. It wasn't the first time either. Macron remains completely unfazed by such admonishments, as if he doesn't even hear them. And Valls, who often speaks of strength and authority, seems increasingly incapable of dealing with his economics minister.

Skewering the Doctrines of the Left

Macron doesn't feel that he should exercise restraint in expressing his opinions, but

is there anything he has said that he regretted afterwards? "What I regret is that I have been unable to implement some of my ideas because the political conditions for them were too difficult." He hadn't even been in office for five days when he came out in favor of abolishing the 35-hour week, which is considered sacrosanct in France. He also likes to criticize the privileged French civil servant status, which "no longer has anything to do with reality," as he says, and he urges young people "to aspire to become billionaires." During a panel discussion, he said that liberalism was a left-wing value. And he said that the life of an entrepreneur was harder than that of an ordinary employee.

Statements that would elsewhere at most sound banal have the potential to ignite a scandal in France. A left-wing economics minister in a pinstriped suit who skewers the doctrines of the left -- and reaps applause for his actions from the right -- violates a taboo in a country in which political life remains subject to a rigid right-left paradigm. "I stand by the fact that I have a different approach to things," Macron says. "I'm neither a traditional politician, nor do I master the conventional phrases of the political establishment."

Anyone who so ostentatiously lays claim to something like this knows how to seize an opportunity and benefit from the enormous crisis of confidence between citizens and their government. To Macron's credit, he has jolted the French awake and striven to rouse the country from its state of stupefaction. Instead of seeking to appease the public, he sees it as his mission to galvanize the French into action. Moreover, this is coupled with a tremendous sense of self-confidence that consistently shines through and makes you wonder where in the world it comes from. Indeed, Macron means business. He says that he wants to "reinvent politics," that he wants a "New Deal" for Europe, a new social contract for France. But he has never had to stand for election.

His role models are the great socialist European politician Jacques Delors, and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, a pragmatic reformer. Sometimes it seems as if Macron saw France as Sleeping Beauty and himself as the Prince.

When Hollande appointed him as a minister in August 2014, it was a coup for the president. Macron was young, smart and a fresh face. At the time, he appeared to be Hollande's last wildcard. Now, everyone is asking who is benefiting from whom. Macron's En Marche! movement reportedly has some 50,000 members and 12,000 volunteers are said to work for him. He has hired the same specialists who designed the 2012 election campaign for Hollande.

It is a balancing act. Macron has been the target of an increasing number of attacks --both in and outside the government. But instead of parrying them, he simply carries on. Hollande and Macron go back a long way. "He knows what he owes me," Hollande recently said, in what sounded like a warning.

In 2012, he made the former investment banker his economic adviser and brought him into the presidential palace after his election victory. Even today, the economics minister enjoys privileged access to the president. It was Macron, for example, who warned Hollande against the controversial "supertax" of 75 percent on high earnings, saying that it would make France into a "Cuba without the sun." Shortly after he took office, Hollande introduced the tax anyway -- and promptly withdrew it again. It was an embarrassment.

As a politician you also always have to be an educator, Macron says on board the train to Brussels. "I am convinced that we will make progress if we explain to the country what we would like to do, and why. If we indicate a direction." This is a swipe at Hollande, whose presidency -- also in the past year -- has been an exercise in endless dithering.

In early April, Macron stood at a hotel bar in Algiers, while the loudspeakers blared an easy listening version of "Hotel California." The minister, who was on a state visit with his prime minister, was drinking ginger ale on ice. Once again, he was asked to explain his own success. Macron responded that he was "antisystème," or nonconformist. Perhaps that's it, he said.