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With popularity slumping, the President doesn’t want to be viewed as someone who favours big business at the expense of workers
As President Emmanuel Macron presses ahead with the most business-friendly overhaul of the French labour market in decades, his popularity with many of his countrymen has gone into a tailspin. Consumer confidence is falling. A nascent recovery is cooling off. Unemployment has been stuck above 9% for months.
And then there was the encounter with the gardener.
In an exchange that went viral on social media, Mr. Macron was seen as lecturing an out-of-work gardener in Paris to look harder for a job. “If I crossed the street, I’d find you one,” he told the man, prompting a Twitter storm of insults aimed at Mr. Macron, a former investment banker. That is hardly the vision of France, or of his presidency, that Mr. Macron hoped for when he swept into office 18 months ago with a pledge to revitalize Europe’s third-biggest economy by pursuing workforce reforms that had been stalled for more than a decade.
Ministers on the way out
His approval ratings have slumped, and on Wednesday his Interior Minister resigned, the third Cabinet member to quit in six weeks. Amid the turmoil, the government is trying to shore up support by giving cash back to the working class — with tax breaks next year worth €6 billion ($6.9 billion) for middle-and low-income earners — while reassuring investors that his designs for a “new French prosperity” are on track. Mr. Macron remains unbending in his attitude — and his criticism that French society must adapt to thrive. “I will not change course,” Mr. Macron told the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche . “We’re in a moment when many political leaders before me have yielded,” he added. “But it’s more necessary than ever to move ahead with reforms.” His remarks dovetailed with a public relations blitz by some members of his Cabinet in recent days, and underscored the stakes for Mr. Macron as he unwinds business regulations and changes the parameters of the welfare state. Bruno Le Maire, the Finance Minister, said abandoning pro-business policies would lead to a “dead end.” The 2019 budget also includes an 18.8 billion euro reduction in payroll and other business taxes to encourage hiring and investment. Mr. Macron’s economic policies have encouraged companies like Facebook and Fujitsu to increase investments in France. But his style — the confrontation with the gardener is a case in point — has alienated him from working-class voters and older citizens, who view him as out of touch and inclined to favour big business at the expense of workers. Mr. Macron’s 2019 budget tries to make some amends. It pivots toward those left behind in the previous round of tax cuts, targeting €6 billion in housing and payroll tax cuts at the working class, on top of reductions in employee health care contributions and unemployment insurance payments.NY Times
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/macron-tries-tax-cuts-to-woo-france-s-working-class/article25127921.ece
