Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
clear sky
weather
OMAN
25°C / 25°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Defiant Macron says will stick to reforms despite strikes

1305941
1305941
minus
plus

BERD’HUIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday he would stick to sweeping reform plans despite a series of strikes and street protests, saying in his first TV interview in months that he was not one to govern based on opinion polls.


The interview with a widely watched midday news programme, held in a school in a small village in Normandy, appeared aimed to appeal to older, rural voters, many of whom have expressed anger at Macron’s economic and tax reforms.


“Public opinion is not an objective in itself, sorry to be so blunt,” Macron said in the interview carried out private network TF1. “Otherwise, what do you do, every day you check polls on this and that thing to know what you can do?”


Since his election in May last year, Macron has made significant changes to France’s labour rules and embarked on a series of other reforms including to education, the highly-indebted rail operator SNCF, taxes and parliament.


Speaking in a brightly decorated elementary school, with children’s drawings on the wall, Macron said he would carry out the reforms, including to state-run SNCF, which has provoked a series of debilitating strikes, “until the end.” “I’m asking you to trust me, if I’ve shown one thing over the past year it is that I do what I said I would do,” he said. Addressing pensioners, most of whom voted for him last year but whom opinion polls show are growing much more critical, mainly because their pensions have been hit by a tax hike, Macron said: “I have asked the pensioners to make an effort... and I tell them ‘thank you’”.


The 40-year-old president, a former investment banker and economy minister, went into detail on the tax reform, explaining that the poorest pensioners were not hit by the tax hike and had instead received a subsidy increase this month.


Asked what he thought of the “president of the rich” tag he has been labelled with by opponents on the left, Macron pointed to decisions including the reduction of a housing tax.


“I am the president of all the French people. The rich don’t need a president, they’re doing quite well by themselves,” he said. — Reuters


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon