The French President, Emmanuel Macronhas stepped forward and has accepted “communication errors” in defense of the pension reform which is causing a drop in its popularity after its adoption in the midst of massive demonstrations against it.
In a meeting with readers of the daily Le Parisien, which the newspaper published online this Sunday, Macron regretted not having been able to convince the majority of the French that the reform was necessary and assured that “perhaps” he should have “wet more” in the debates. “The error could have been not having been sufficiently present to give a record and drive this reform myself“said the president, who assured that he chose to leave that task to his government.
Despite everything, the president defended the delay of the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years as the only way to maintain the current pension system because “with all the other hypotheses it is deficient”. And he accused the opposition of not proposing any alternative, which “in a way prevented the debate.”
Macron assured that will continue to attend public events to “reconquer the public debate because there are things that are not clear” and regretted that some protesters receive him with saucepans instead of debating with him. “There are people who disagree and you can talk. But when there are people who just want to cover your voice or throw objects at you, that is incivility,” he said.
The president warned of danger that the ultra-right Marine Le Pen comes to power “if the country’s challenges are not responded to and if the habit of lying and denying reality is established.” The extreme right “will never win the game of populism and demagogy” but it is fought with “reindustrialization” and real policies that “lift people out of despair.”