French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed in a televised interview on Monday evening that “the country is moving forward” despite the popular protests over reforming the pension system, denying the accusations leveled at him of “contempt” for the French.
French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed in a televised interview on Monday evening that “the country is moving forward” despite the popular protests over reforming the pension system, denying the accusations leveled at him of “contempt” for the French.
“There was opposition in the street, but it took place quietly, and there were acts of violence (…) and people who did not want solutions. But this is not France. This does not represent the country, and the country is moving forward and continuing to innovate,” Macron said on TF1. .
“Do you think it’s in my best interest to do what we’re doing about the pension system, to carry the burden of difficult scripts, to suffer all the unpopularity that entails and to accept that?”
The French president admitted that during the negotiations on reforming the pension system he was “sometimes solid”, denying, on the other hand, the accusation of “contempt” leveled at him by a majority of the French, according to a recent opinion poll.
Macron said, “I do not like this adjective that is used in random fashion,” considering that it was “an adjective that extremists called me and it was passed on.”
“I’ve never seen someone say to me ‘You’re a snob’. Sometimes I’m told ‘You’re too tough, you’re too determined, you’re too energetic’. And sometimes others tell me I’m not going far enough.”
The French president expressed his regret that some of those who were advocating raising the retirement age “fled” from the battlefield as soon as the battle over this reform began.
Protests continue in France against the reform of the retirement system, especially its main clause related to raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
The unions called for a new day of protests against this reform on June 6th.
