PARIS – Vowing to heal France’s “doubts and divisions”, President Emmanuel Macron is expected to quickly address one of the key issues that has motivated more than 40% of voters Vote for the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen: the erosion of purchasing power and living standards that fueled discontent during his first term.
The French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, stated on Monday in an interview on Europe 1 that Macron’s second term will be different. “We cannot forget the message they sent. We need to change the way we manage,” he said.
The euro rallied on Monday after Mr Macron’s win, which was highly expected in financial markets and greeted with relief by European leaders, who welcomed political continuity in one of the most powerful countries in Europe. Ms Le Pen, who plans to withdraw from European integration, is seen by many as a danger to EU unity.
One of Mr. Macron’s top priorities will be the “purchasing power package” he outlined during the election campaign. It includes pushing through summer measures to increase pensions, increase social benefits for households stressed by hyperinflation and provide tax breaks to incentivize companies to reward spending. expensive cost of living.
Mr. Le Maire added that the cap on energy prices that Mr. Macron put in place to combat soaring energy bills from Russia’s War in Ukraine will be maintained until the end of the year. It was a clear concession to Ms. Le Pen’s proposal to reduce the value-added tax on energy and gas from 20% to 5.5%.
“There is a lot of work to be done on inflation, in terms of the economy,” Mr. Le Maire said.
Although Mr. Macron has presided over economic growth and a sharp drop in unemployment, he has failed to appease growing inequality. If he wins a parliamentary majority in the legislative elections in June, he will have more freedom to continue his economic agenda.
French labor unions welcomed Mr Macron’s victory, but said he needed to bridge the divide in France. They urged him to focus on social and economic issues that got people to vote for Ms Le Pen – even as they called for nationwide protests on May 1 to demand Mr. and pensions, delaying the plan to increase pension age and further emphasizing environmental policy.
“The worst was avoided today. But nearly 42 percent of the vote in favor of the far right means that nothing can and should be as before,” said Laurent Berger, general secretary of the CFDT, one of France’s leading labor unions, wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Solidaires, another major union, warned that the power of the far right appeared to be growing, in part due to the “antisocial policies” of French governments. Despite Mr Macron’s win, the union says he “doesn’t have the universal legitimacy to adopt anti-social reforms,” particularly his plan to raise the retirement age to 64 or 65 to fund France’s national pension system (current retirement age is 62).
Business lobbyists, buoyed by Mr Macron’s victory, have warned that Ms Le Pen’s ideas about pulling France out of Europe would do incalculable damage to the country and the economy. its. But they acknowledge that social unrest could flare up again.
Mr. Macron’s first term was marked by mass protests against his proposals to change the pension system, as well as Yellow Vest movementcaused millions of frustrated workers to take to the streets to protest against being left behind in the French economy.
François Asselin, president of an industry group representing small and medium-sized businesses, said: “The president before him was the merits of Hercules, I believe the world has never been so unstable as we know it. . “The question is how to get as many people as possible to accept the reforms that the country needs, without the bottlenecks, because we need a country that works.”
