On the sidelines of his three-day trip to Marseille, Emmanuel Macron assured the mother of a job seeker that there were “ten possible offers” for his son, inviting him to “go around the Old Port” on Monday evening with him to illustrate his point. The head of state, who sparked controversy in 2018 by telling a young horticulturist looking for a job that all you had to do was “cross the street” to find work, persisted in Marseille: “When I was younger, I used to say that you had to cross the street. This is even more true today than yesterday,” he argued.

The president was arrested during a walkabout by a woman deploring that her 33-year-old son no longer receives the active solidarity income (RSA). “He owes eleven months rent now. He can’t even get a job” because “he doesn’t have money for transportation,” she said, shaking the president’s hand.

Emphasizing that there were “support devices” to “get to work”, Mr. Macron questioned her in return: “What does your son want to work in? (…) He is ready to work as a waiter? “Any…everything!” “, replied his interlocutor.

“You’re not going to make me believe that if he’s really looking for a job in Marseille, and he’s willing to take a waiter job, that there’s no waiter job,” shifted The head of state. Insisting: “Me, I promise you: I’m going around the Old Port tonight [Monday] with you, I’m sure there are ten job offers”. “He’s going to see one of my associates. And tonight [Monday], he has an appointment for a job, ”promised the president again.

Opposition reactions

In May, during a trip to Dunkirk, Emmanuel Macron had already suggested to a young man that it was enough to “go a meter” to find a job.

This new outing by the President of the Republic on this theme immediately made the opposition react, like the leader of the “rebellious” deputies, Mathilde Panot, who considered that “Macron caricatures Macron”. “The solution to unemployment? Crossing a street in 2018. Doing one meter in May 2023. The time has come to take a tour of the Old Port in June 2023. Faced with the contempt of the people, the only unemployed person hoped for in the country is Emmanuel Macron,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Rebellious” MP Bastien Lachaud castigated the “old reactionary myth” of “millions of unfilled jobs”. “We are not dealing with a president but with a crude provocateur, who makes fun of the people. Unworthy,” he gritted. “What Macron says is not wrong. The last time, even without going around, he appointed his former Minister of the Interior, president of the great maritime port of Marseille…”, for his part, mocked Olivier Faure, boss of the socialist party. Senator LR from Bouches-du-Rhône Valérie Boyer, for her part, quipped: “When Emmanuel Macron is no longer president, he could retrain as an agent at Pôle emploi. »