“The changes foreseen by this pension law will come into force gradually at starting in the fall”. So the French president Emmanuel Macron he began his televised speech after promulgating the text of the reform that has been causing great protests across the country for 3 months. The new law provides that the age to retire from work will go up from 62 to 64 years. The reform “was needed to ensure retirement of all and to produce more wealth for our nation”. continued Macron arguing that “as the number of pensioners increases and our life expectancy lengthens, the answer could not have been to lower pensions or increase the contributions of those who work“. The president then spends himself in an attempt to rapprochement with the opposites.
“The reform was necessary, but is it an accepted reform? It clearly isn’t. Despite months of consultation, no consensus could be found. And I regret it, we have to draw all the lessons from it ”, she continued. “I felt the rage of the French. I heard in the demonstrations an opposition to the reform but also a will to rediscover meaning in one’s work, to improve their conditions, to have careers that allow them to progress in life”.
In the speech Macron therefore proposed now, after the approval of the pension reform, “the opening of three construction sites”, the one concerning work, the one on justice and the one on progress. On the first, Macron welcomed the creation “of 1.7 million jobs in the last 6 years” and said he wanted to “start the professional high school reform so that the largest number of our adolescents can access qualifying training and work”. Macron added that he intends to launch in the coming weeks with the social partners “a new pact for life at work”.
“An unreal Macron. Completely out of touch with reality. He took on the theft of two years of freedom”, was the tweet almost in real time by Jean-Luc Melenchon, leftist of La France Insoumise. For the Communist leader Fabien Roussel, “those who have not listened to it have not lost anything”. While the socialist spokesman Pierre Jouvet limited himself to reiterating the appointment in the square for May 1st.