In the cobbled streets of Rennes, there is scant affection for Emmanuel Macron among the voters who propelled France’s mould-breaking president to power, though hopes for a socialist revival in this bastion of left-wing support are muted, reports euronews.
Nearly nine in every ten voters here backed Macron in his run-off race against Marine Le Pen a year ago, but most did so to keep a far-right populist leader out of the Elysée Palace rather than open the door to a former investment banker promising to create jobs and improve workers’ lives by rebooting the economy.
A year on, Macron, who pitched himself as ‘neither of the left nor right’, faces simmering discontent over economic policies perceived as favouring the wealthy, as well as accusations of a controlling leadership style and intolerance for dissent.
“He’s too much of a neo-liberal for me,” said administrator Herve Garnier, a longtime supporter of the centre-left Socialist Party who voted for Macron last May’s second round.
“His government doesn’t listen, it imposes what it wants. But you’ve got to listen to the street,” the 50-year-added, a reference to the protests by public workers, students, pensioners and railworkers confronting Macron.
Macron has so far ignored voter anger and a precipitous decline in popularity, pressing ahead with policy to liberalise the heavily-regulated economy and confronting head-on labour unions and other vested interests he believes have choked growth in the past.
Some 58 percent of French consider his economic reforms “too radical”, an Odoxa poll showed this week, but Macron says he will not be distracted from his chance to reshape France.
Unions complain Macron has eroded workers’ rights to the benefit of big business, while left-wing opponents have dubbed him the “president of the rich”.
“You can hope some bankers will be human beings. Now we realise he’s shown his true colours, he’s a true banker,” said retired history teacher Luis Guasco, a supporter of the far-left France Unbowed party.
Read more of this report from Reuters published by euronews.