Macron promises tax cuts, but says the French need to work as hard as their neighbours
EMMANUEL MACRON has promised “significant” tax cuts for France’s middle classes and reductions in public spending, but told the French they must work like their “neighbours”, in a much-awaited response to five months of “yellow vest” protests.
In what the French media dubbed his “moment of truth”, the 41-year old centrist promised citizens a “new act in our Republic” during a marathon 140-minute press conference at the Elysée – his first since his election – in which he confessed his way of running the country had lacked “humanity”.
After enacting a whirlwind set of reforms, notably loosening labour laws, the president has been on the back foot since he was blindsided by nationwide protests, initially over fuel tax rises, which morphed into wider anger at the inability of provincial France to make ends meet. Much of the fury was directed towards Mr Macron, seen as an arrogant “president of the rich”.
Stunned, he offered a first string of sweeteners in December worth €10 billion, but this failed to calm anger among low-income workers.
He then launched an unprecedented three-month nationwide “great debate”, taking part in many himself.
“We must work more, I’ve said it before. France works much less than its neighbours. We need to have a real debate on this,” Mr Macron said.
He confirmed leaked plans to scrap the ENA, the country’s most prestigious university, saying that while he deeply believed in a meritocratic system of recruiting the country’s elite civil servants, it failed to reflect a cross-section of society. He stood firm on cuts he had made to a wealth tax, saying it would be reviewed in 2020.
“It was a reform to stimulate production, not a present for the rich,” he said.
In his only question on foreign policy, the president admitted to differences with Angela Merkel on Brexit, saying “we are not completely on the same page”, without providing further detail.
Mr Macron gave his speech without his wife, Brigitte, who reports say is to return to the classroom to teach adults who left school without qualifications.
According to her Elysée aides, starting from September, she will teach adults aged between 25 to 30 French literature “once or twice a month” at a college in a deprived Paris suburb.