Mexico City, Mexico - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum toured sold-out stadiums across the country and spoke to huge crowds as she celebrated and rode high on the successes of her first year in office.

At each stop on her weekend tours, which saw crowds chant "Presidenta! Presidenta!" as she traversed the country, Mexico's first female president was assailed by supporters jostling to embrace her and ask for selfies.

With an extraordinary approval rating of 79% in late August, up from around 70% when she took office, Sheinbaum is thriving amidst the diplomatic wrangling she's had to undertake with President Donald Trump.

Speaking to the AFP outside Mexico's presidential palace, Pedro Partida, a retired janitor, credited the 63-year-old with "restoring self-esteem" to women in a society characterized by masculine pride.

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"The phrase 'you look prettier when you're quiet' no longer has a place in Mexico!" Sheinbaum declared with her trademark calm firmness in a video posted on social media.

"Girls come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you when I grow up, I don't want to be a princess anymore; I want to be president,'" she said in a separate campaign-style ad.

Formerly an environmental scientist, Sheinbaum has a reputation for being diligent in her duties and keeping a cool head in times of crisis.

She "has a scientific approach... based on data and facts, and she requests her team to present results within specific timeframes," a European diplomat told AFP.

Sheinbaum herself claims to have learned discipline from an early age, as a ballet dancer, and that discipline has been combined with a tendency towards caution when faced with the volatile Trump administration.

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Her skills in dodging Trump's ire and convincing him to postpone 30-% tariffs on Mexican imports have won her global admiration, even if her restraint on issues like Gaza has drawn criticism at home.

Sheinbaum ducked out of the UN General Assembly in New York last week, and she is also not planning on attending a G20 summit in South Africa in November, an aide told AFP.

"Domestic policy is clearly the only field that matters to her," said political analyst Carlo Bravo.

At home, she has her hands full in trying to extricate Mexico from a seemingly endless cycle of brutal cartel-related violence. She has had some success, such as a reduction in the murder rate, but has also overseeing an increase in disappearances.

Between October and August, 13,547 people went missing - a few hundred more than the year before - according to the National Registry of Missing and Unlocated Persons, many of them victims of cartel violence and forced recruitment.

Sheinbaum has distanced herself from the "hugs, not bullets" approach of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, her predecessor.

Since Sheinbaum entered office, Mexico has extradited 55 senior cartel leaders and other fugitives to the US to face justice, and the police have made record hauls of fentanyl.

During a visit to Mexico City in early September, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced satisfaction with Mexico's efforts and praised Sheinbaum's government.

"There's no other government that's cooperating as much with us in the fight against crime as the government of Mexico and President Sheinbaum's administration," Rubio said.