Merkel: Germany must help Macron to succeed
BERLIN: Germany must help new French President Emmanuel Macron succeed, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared on Monday, saying she hoped he manages to fight unemployment in France, adding that the best way to counter populists was to solve problems.
Macron is due to meet unions on Tuesday to discuss labor reform. He has said he intends to use executive decrees as soon as this summer to reform labor laws in a country where unemployment remains high at 9.6 percent.
Asked about Germany’s large trade surplus during an event at a school in Berlin, Merkel said her country could invest more even if domestic demand is already the driving force of economic growth.
The center- right chancellor added that reasons for the surplus included a euro that is weak due to the European Central Bank’s expansionary monetary policy and a low oil price.
Meanwhile, a British media report said that France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen will abandon her pitch to leave the EU and restore the French franc.
Le Pen said on Friday that the far- right party would start debating its trademark anti- euro stance after next month’s parliamentary elections.
“There will be no Frexit. We have taken note of what the French people told us,” Bernard Monot, the party’s chief economic strategist, told The Telegraph.
“I continue to think that the euro is not technically viable but it makes no sense for us to keep insisting stubbornly. From now on, our policy will be to renegotiate the EU treaties to give us more control over our budget and banking regulations,” he was quoted as saying.
Leaving the euro and the EU were key pledges of Le Pen’s failed presidential bids this year and in 2012. A majority of French voters is in favor of keeping the currency, opinion polls show.
President Macron has sought to reinvigorate the FrancoGerman relationship which lies at the heart of the EU. During the presidential election campaign, Macron warned that the euro may not exist in a decade if Paris and Berlin fail to bolster the currency union.
Macron beat Le Pen in a May 7 run-off vote but the long campaign exposed deep divisions over France’s role in Europe, immigration, and policies to revive a sluggish economy bedevilled by high unemployment.