French president Emmanuel Macron is at last preparing to speak to the nation Monday, after increasingly violent and radicalized protests against his leadership and a long silence that aggravated the anger. Many protesters only want one thing: for him to declare \u201cI quit.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an unlikely prospect. Instead Macron is expected to announce a series of measures to reduce taxes and boost purchasing power for the masses who feel his presidency has favoured the rich. He\u2019s being forced to act after four weeks of \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests that started in struggling provinces and spread to rioting in the capital that has scared tourists and foreign investors and shaken France to the core.<\/p>\n
Macron met Monday morning in his presidential palace with local and national politicians, unions and business leaders to hear their concerns. In the evening, he will give a national televised address, his first public words in more than a week.<\/p>\n
The morning meeting stretched past lunch and into the afternoon. A presidential official said there were 37 people around the table with the president, describing how the movement is impacting their sectors, including unions, small businesses and local government.<\/p>\n
Among steps the government is considering are abolishing taxes on overtime, speeding up tax cuts and an end-of-year bonus for low-income workers. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Monday the government could delay some payroll taxes, but expressed resistance to restoring the wealth tax or lowering taxes for retirees, among protesters\u2019 demands. He stressed that the measures should focus on helping the working classes.<\/p>\n
Fallout from the protests so far could cost France 0.1 percent of gross domestic product in the last quarter of the year, Le Maire warned. \u201cThat means fewer jobs, it means less prosperity for the whole country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The \u201cyellow vest\u201d protests began as a movement against a rise in fuel taxes that Macron eventually abandoned, but have mushroomed to include a plethora of sometimes contradictory demands increasingly including Macron\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMacron is there for the rich, not for all the French,\u201d 68-year-old retiree Jean-Pierre Meunuer said at Saturday\u2019s protests in Paris.<\/p>\n
Some members of the movement are already planning new action next Saturday, amid calls from police officers exhausted by four weekends of rioting for the payment of overtime work instead of bonuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe State should commit itself to the payment of overtime,\u201d the UNSA police union said in a statement on Monday. \u201cThese extra hours should be exempted from tax. Night hours should be revalued. UNSA police officials will listen carefully to the president\u2019s announcements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graffiti throughout the French capital singles Macron out for criticism, reflecting a national sense that the 40-year-old centrist former banker is arrogant and out of touch. Macron however has appeared determined to continue his course, and no presidential or parliamentary elections are planned until 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
French president Emmanuel Macron is at last preparing to speak to the nation Monday, after increasingly violent and radicalized protests against his leadership and a long silence that aggravated the anger. Many protesters only want one thing: for him to declare \u201cI quit.\u201d That\u2019s an unlikely prospect. Instead Macron is expected to announce a series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49722,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49720\/revisions\/49722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}