Emmanuel Macron is checking on the street, directly, how unpopular his pension reform is and the rejection that his person arouses in an important sector of the citizenry. Yesterday, for the second day in a row, the French president was greeted with protests during a trip to the south of the country, which forced a large police deployment and caused moments of tension.
The Élysée holder was on Wednesday in Sélestat (Alsace), near the border with Germany, where he was subjected to a saucepan, booed and shouted “Resign!” and “Get out!” As is his custom, Macron tried to dialogue with some of the people who confronted him or questioned him quite aggressively, to whom he reiterated his economic arguments in favor of delaying the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
Yesterday, almost 800 kilometers to the south, in Ganges, near Montpellier, the scenes of protesters struggling with riot police, who were thrown eggs and potatoes, were repeated. Macron visited a school and announced a salary increase for teachers of between 100 and 230 euros net per month. While he was at the school, there was no electricity, due to sabotage by trade unionists. On Wednesday the same thing happened in Alsace at the factory he visited. The president gave up yesterday going to the meeting of protesters in the street, for fear of being in a dangerous situation.
Macron then made a stop that was not on the programme. He stopped in the small town of Pérols and had some tapas and a beer, outdoors, in a Basque bar, Peña Pil Pil San Sebastián. There he took photos with children and talked with people from the town. The Élysée was undoubtedly looking for more friendly images than those of constant protests. However, a woman approached him and told him that she had voted for him last year, but only to prevent the victory of her rival, the far-right Marine Le Pen. The woman reproached him for not taking into account people like her, who gave her her vote, and for not having a democratic attitude. The president tried to convince her that she was wrong, although she gave up when she saw her non-negotiable attitude.
It is not just Macron who is met with hostility as he moves around the country. Some ministers have had to cancel planned events or have been booed. Yesterday there was also a temporary occupation of the headquarters of the Euronext company, which manages the stock market, in the financial district of La Défense. The demonstrators demanded that large companies cover the pension deficit.
The situation, very complicated for the French Government, has no sign of being resolved. In addition to the discontent and the protests, the problem is that the macronistas are in a minority in the National Assembly and without reliable partners to carry out initiatives in the coming years. The discontent is not only due to the content of the pension reform, but to the fact that it was approved by decree, without a parliamentary vote, a procedure authorized by the Constitution, but which was interpreted, given the circumstances, as an anti-democratic imposition that displeased even to many macronista deputies.
