Emmanuel Macron is to give up his own generous presidential pension in an attempt to calm anger over politicians’ privileges, as French transport strikes caused chaos for Christmas travellers, reports The Guardian.
With rail strikes continuing into their third week and travellers scrambling to get to home for the holidays, Macron, who turned 42 this weekend, made the symbolic move to become the first president in more than 50 years to give up the automatic pension of more than 6,000euros a month that all French leaders receive after leaving office, regardless of age or wealth.
Macron’s office added that he would not take his seat in France’s constitutional court, where former presidents are members for life and receive a monthly allowance of 13,500 euros.
“This is about being exemplary and coherent,” an Élysée official said.
The pro-business Macron is aware that the strikes over his planned pensions changes have increasingly focused on him personally, with caricatures and banners at street demonstrations depicting him as king.
Just as the gilets jaunes anti-government protesters earlier this year complained about Macron building a swimming pool at a presidential summer retreat, and expensively upgrading Élysée carpets and crockery, banners at pensions protests mocked him and and other former presidents for their luxury lifestyles and generous settlements once they leave office.
The prime minister, Édouard Philippe, acknowledged recently that French people believed elected officials were privileged, promising that “in the new universal [pensions] system, they will be treated like any other French person”.
Le Parisien newspaper hailed Macron’s decision to forfeit his presidential pension as “breaking with a dusty tradition of republican monarchy”.
The Left criticised it as a PR stunt, with the Communists saying Macron, a former investment banker, had made millions in the private sector, so had a rare luxury of being able to give up his presidential pension.
Despite the strikes, the government insists it will plough ahead to unify the French pensions system, arguing that getting rid of the 42 special regimes for sectors ranging from rail and energy workers to lawyers and Paris Opera staff is crucial to keep the system financially viable as the population ages.