Macron infuriates critics by calling workers lazy
STATES: Protests planned this week against President Emmanuel Macron’s key employment law reforms have been given additional impetus after he appeared to suggest that French workers opposing them are simply lazy.
Critics seized upon the remark to describe Macron, a former merchant banker, as arrogant and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary families. Unions hope the row will bolster tomorrow’s nationwide protest marches against the labour law package.
Macron’s reforms are designed to weaken unions and to give new powers to employers. In a speech in Athens on Friday, he underlined his determination to drive through a package he sees as vital in the struggle to reduce unemployment from 9.5 per cent to 7 per cent over the next five years. ‘‘I will not yield in any way, not to slackers, nor to cynics, nor to the extremes,’’ he said.
The remark was seen as a reference to claims - often aired by corporate executives - that France has institutionalised laziness through its 35-hour working week, generous unemployment benefits and right to retire at 62.
Jean-luc Melenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party, which is staging further demonstrations on September 23, issued an ironic rallying call on
UNITED
Twitter: ‘‘Half-wits, cynics, slackers, all in the street on September 12 and 23.’’
Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the far-left CGT union, said: ‘‘Who is the president talking about when he says he will yield nothing to the lazy? About these millions of people deprived of jobs, and about those who lack job security?’’
Marine Le Pen, leader of the farright National Front, accused him of ‘‘treating as lazy those who refuse to bow to his policy of perpetual precariousness’’.
Martine Aubry, the former Socialist employment minister , was also indignant. ‘‘And now [for Mr Macron], the French are lazy. What contempt, what ignorance,’’ she said. - The Times