PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday will announce reforms — and a few surprises — hoping to calm persistent populist protesters who have clogged the streets of France and cast a cloud over his presidency for almost six months.
The rollout is more than a week late because the often star-crossed Mr. Macron had to deal with yet one more national crisis: the conflagration that caused massive damage to the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral on April 15.
The centrist Mr. Macron is expected to propose in a nationally televised address to lower taxes for the middle class, reconsider his decision to cut a “fortune solidarity tax” on France’s highest earners and raise the amounts of the lowest pensions, according to a copy of the postponed speech that leaked in recent days.
Whether it will calm the protests or win over voters who are souring on their president is an open question.
“Nothing is going to change,” said Sophie Bunzaen, who was trying to cross Republic Square in the heart of the capital blocked by protesters and police Saturday. “People don’t have enough to eat. It’s necessary for Macron to really listen.”
Mr. Macron, eager to counter an image as aloof and indifferent to popular discontent, has tried to do far more listening than talking since he kicked off a “great national debate” in January in response to yellow vest protests. The Macron government was clearly blindsided by the original yellow vest demonstrations, which started far from Paris by opposition to a hike in taxes at the gas pump.
In small town-hall-style meetings across the country, as well as in requests for comments and online discussions, Mr. Macron has heard complaints from hundreds of thousands of French voters.
Many of these revolve around the country’s tax burden, the highest in the world at 46% of gross domestic product. Some of the unhappiness centers around France’s system of government and a sense by voters that no one in France’s governing elite is listening to them. Many French are also concerned about rising inequality and say only the elites benefit from the system. They dismiss Mr. Macron, a former investment banker, as the “president of the rich” and fume over his tax cut for top earners and businesses designed to make France more competitive internationally.
Attacking the elite
In a hugely symbolic move against the French “1 percent,” Mr. Macron is expected to announce the closure of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the elite college that has long produced top bureaucrats and public servants, many of whom hail from the richest and best-educated segments of France and go on to run the country.
Another complaint is the steady erosion of purchasing power, public services and a social safety net that costs an eye-popping one-third of GDP annually. The problem, analysts say, is that to pay for a tax cut, Mr. Macron and his aides will likely have to trim services and generous benefits, including retirement at age 62, a 35-hour workweek and 30 days of vacation leave every year.
While the generosity drags down France as an international investment destination, French workers have a proven propensity to strike at even the slightest hint of any rollback of benefits.
Still, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe insisted last week as he delivered a summary of the findings of the grand national debate that there is a way to thread the needle.
“We must, and quickly, lower taxes. There is no room for any more tax burden,” he said. “And the French understand … that we cannot lower taxes if we do not lower public spending.”
Economists say it is critical. France, the world’s sixth-largest economy, has become less competitive in recent years.
Unemployment hovered around 9% last year while the economy grew less than 2%. Private consumption and investment also slowed in the past few quarters, some of which is attributed to disruption from the yellow vest protests.
The youthful Mr. Macron, a former economy minister, won the presidency in 2017 with his new party, La Republique En Marche (The Republic on the Move), shattering the traditional left-right party dynamic and promising to jump-start the French economy with a more market-oriented approach.
Analysts say he now has to tackle reform and change the situation for the middle and lower classes if he wants to halt the protests, much less win a second term in 2022.
“He’s in trouble,” said French political commentator Jean-Michel Aphatie. “If he wants to get out of trouble by 2022, he’ll need to fix this poverty crisis that France is facing. But it looks like he’s having trouble getting out of trouble.”
Rising polls
Officials in Mr. Macron’s government seem to understand that.
“We have reached a point where we can’t hesitate. … The need for change is so extreme that hesitation is unforgivable,” Mr. Philippe said. “We must address … the mistrust of government … the feeling of neglect and abandonment [voters feel] and the huge need for justice and equity.”
The president’s marathon listening tour appears to have paid some political dividends. A recent Odoxa poll shows that a majority of French support his proposed changes. Meanwhile, as street violence has marred many protests and early leaders have dropped out, support for the yellow vest movement has weakened.
The number of protesters is also decreasing. On Saturday, the 23rd consecutive demonstration, almost 280,000 people took to the streets of France, a decrease from almost 300,000 who came out to demonstrate on Nov. 17. How the Notre Dame fire — and the hundreds of millions of dollars that have poured in for its rebuilding — will play with the populist movement remains a question.
Meanwhile, Mr. Macron’s popularity has started to rebound. An Ifop poll last week showed his approval rating climbed 6 percentage points to 29% since December.
That raises the stakes for his address Thursday. Mr. Macron has to meet rising expectations that he has found a reliable path forward for change.
“What’s really important is that the French people see that Macron has changed not only in terms of policy; they need to see he’s been transformed by this crisis, that he’s been moved by it,” said Martial Foucault, a professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies in Paris.
Mr. Foucault said that whatever Mr. Macron announces Thursday will likely disappoint many in France because there is no pleasing some protesters.
Still, he anticipates the possibility of real innovations, likely in the form of a referendum, possibly a tinkering with the number of lawmakers and measures to address complaints beyond Paris and the more prosperous cities that feel they are not represented fairly.
“I think that’s important for Macron because he was elected on such issues,” Mr. Foucault said. “He’ll have to announce something big.”
• Rebecca Rosman contributed to this report.
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