Macron Admits Being Arrogant as Protests Loom in France

President Emmanuel Macron has promised to attune himself more to grassroots France as he tries to dispel a reputation for arrogance and rekindle his flagging popularity.

The 40-year-old centrist is on a drive to rescue his plummeting poll ratings and revive some of the optimism generated in 2016 when he set up his new party dominated by political newcomers.

In a prime-time TV interview on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier late on Wednesday after hosting dozens of world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, at World War I commemorations, an unusually self-critical Macron admitted he has struggled to unite his people.

“I have not succeeded in reconciling the French with their leaders,” he told the TF1 network as France braced for nationwide protests on Saturday over spiralling fuel costs that have especially angered rural voters.

“Citizens today want three things: to be given due consideration, to be protected, and to offered solutions,” he said, admitting that “we have probably not given them enough consideration”.

In future, he said, he would “maybe take decisions in a different manner. Not all in Paris”.

Government ministers, their advisers and senior civil servants would instead be required to “spend much

It was a stark admission from a leader who is still learning how to wield power, having never held elected office before becoming France’s youngest ever president in May 2017.

The former investment banker is particularly labouring under a reputation for arrogance and has struggled to shake off the label of “president of the rich” coined by critics early on over his tax cuts for business and wealthy investors.

He famously told an unemployed gardener in September he only had to “cross the road” to find work. And last month he told a retiree complaining about tax hikes on pensions that the French “did not realise the luck they have” and they should stop complaining.