“Macron resignation”: the head of state was able to take the measure of his unpopularity on Wednesday, booed for a long time in Alsace during his first walkabout in weeks by demonstrators ulcerated by the promulgation of his highly contested pension reform.
“We are here, we are here”, they chanted in the small Alsatian town of Sélestat (Bas-Rhin) in the middle of a concert of whistles. “You have a corrupt government”, launched a man with gray hair, while a young woman asked “a sign of appeasement. But there really we do not see”.
“We made concessions (…) We will continue to improve things on working conditions,” replied Emmanuel Macron.
Throughout his trip to Alsace, the first in weeks and since the promulgation on Friday of the postponement of the retirement age to 64, the Head of State was welcomed by small groups of opponents angry.
Even before his arrival in the small town of Muttersholtz where he visited the Mathis company, which specializes in wooden construction, around a hundred demonstrators, drumming on pots and chanting hostile messages, were pushed back by the forces of the ‘order. They were then kept at bay.
“The pans will not advance France”, reacted, in front of journalists, Emmanuel Macron.
“You will always see me with people (…) I have no right to stop,” he added as his recent trips have all been heckled by opponents of the reform.
Then at the end of the day: “This anger is expressed, I did not expect anything else but it will not prevent me from continuing to move”. This will be done on Thursday with a new field visit, in Hérault, on the theme of education.
In the Mathis factory, the CGT claimed a power cut which did not, however, plunge the premises into darkness.
The rebellious deputy of Bas-Rhin Emmanuel Fernandes, invited to discuss with the Head of State, then gagged his face with a 49.3 blindfold, the constitutional weapon used to have the text on pensions adopted without a vote. “I represent this majority France which refuses this reform and the increasingly brutal methods” of the government.
“The saucepans are the voice of the people. In the street and in the windows,” tweeted the leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Emmanuel Macron remained in the background, at the Elysée, during the three months of crisis, with the exception of two visits to the regions, in Charente and near Lake Serre-Ponçon, in the Alps. The last time he spoke at length with the French was in Paris at the end of February, at the agricultural show.
Large union parades against the pension reform are now replaced almost daily by rallies and concerts of pans, a sign of a challenge that is settling in over time despite the validation of the law by the Constitutional Council.
“Each of us has a vocation to go into the field. The President of the Republic is obviously the best ambassador of the policy conducted in this country for six years”, estimated Wednesday the spokesman of the government, Olivier Veran.
During his address to the French on Monday evening on television, the Head of State gave himself a hundred days to relaunch his second five-year term.
Among the priority projects that he wants to advance by July 14, that of a “new pact for life at work” to be negotiated with the social partners, and that of “progress” in public services such as the education or health.
Thursday in the Hérault, in Ganges and Lunel, he will exchange with teachers, students and parents. According to several macronist sources, he could on this occasion make announcements on the remuneration of teachers.
“Acceleration” seems to be the key word in the sequence that the President of the Republic now wants to open.
“The logic of the days, weeks and months to come is (…) that this anger can be expressed in a legitimate way” but also “that by appeasing we continue to move forward”, he affirmed Wednesday.
“The mission of a President of the Republic is neither to be loved nor not to be loved, it is to try to do well for his country and to act”, he added. .
04/19/2023 20:17:41 – Sélestat (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
