Emmanuel Macron has promised to overhaul the French welfare state and cut public spending, telling MPs at the Palace of Versailles that his only ideology is to strive for “French greatness”, reports The Guardian.
The pro-business, centrist leader, who beat the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in an election a year ago, denied seeking to help the wealthy at the expense of the poor as he sought to shake off accusations that he is a “president of the rich”.
Macron’s approval ratings have dipped particularly among the left and working-class voters, and a majority of French voters question whether they will benefit from his flagship policies including loosening labour laws, cutting corporate taxes and changing the workings of the state rail operator SNCF in the face of union strikes.
An Odoxa survey last week found just 29% of French people thought his policies were fair. He has slashed France’s wealth tax and recently complained that the state spent too much on social security.
On Monday in the president’s yearly address to both houses of parliament, Macron tried to strike a more humble note. “This is an office that, realistically, requires humility,” he said, seated in an ornate meeting hall in the gilded palace of France’s former monarchy. “But humility in oneself, not humility for France.”
He said of the coming year: “The priority is simple: build the welfare state of the 21st century.”
His view of a new welfare state essentially amounts to a move away from a model of redistribution towards a Nordic-style system of “flexi-security” in which the labour market is loosened and the focus is on changing from a rigid labour code to a society of individuals moving between jobs.
Macron promised changes to unemployment benefits, pensions and the health system. He said one in five children in France were living in poverty, and said his overhauled welfare state would mean “getting people out of poverty”, not distributing benefits that kept them in poverty.