22.03.2023, Paris.
Representatives of the opposition and trade unions denounced the speech of French President Emmanuel Macron on the pension reform, the French newspaper Le Figaro wrote on March 22.
Macron’s speech on March 22 on the French TV channels France 2 and TF1 about the pension reform in no way softened the continuing controversy, as the newspaper noted. On the contrary, as soon as his interview ended, he was sharply criticized by his political opponents, as well as by trade union representatives.
According to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the LFI, Macron’s interview was full of usual contempt for his opponents. The man who “lives outside any reality” once again showed his arrogance by calling the voice of the crowd illegitimate, as the oppositionist noted. And yet, from Mélenchon’s point of view, the crowd is part of the people and its voice is like “the cry of the soul.”
“This president does not understand the French,” the first secretary of the French Socialist Party (PS), Olivier Faure, wrote on social networks.
According to him, Macron considers the French to be lazy junkies on state aid. In fact, from the point of view of the first secretary of the PS, in this way, the leader of state poured gasoline on the burning embers, which he himself had lit.
For his part, Patrick Kanner, chairman of the group of PS senators, criticized the French Senate for supporting an arrogant, self-righteous and irresponsible president. And he felt sorry for the French, punished by a president who did not understand them at all.
“Emmanuel Macron does not understand the existence of huge divisions among the French people. In these circumstances, his complacency acted as another provocation. Therefore, his policy of waiting, when he did not want to change anything, turned into a game with fire,” Aurelien Pradie, a Republican (LR) deputy, wrote on Twitter.
The leaders of the French trade unions also spoke in unison with the political parties. They also reacted to the President’s speech. For Laurent Berger, general secretary of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT) trade union, there was only denial of the obvious and lies in Macron’s words. Thus, as the union leader noted, he tried to hide his inability to find a majority to vote for his unjust reform.
His colleague from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Philippe Martinez, called Macron’s remarks “bullshit.”
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
