After the use of 49.3 to pass the pension reform, the foreign press had underlined the anger of the French, even mocking the passage of Paris, which had become a trash city, with the garbage collectors’ strike. What did she think of Emmanuel Macron’s speech, delivered last night, and supposed to appease the country? As in France, the president is struggling to convince in Western newsrooms.
There were the refractory Gauls. There is now “Emmanuel Macron refractory”, according to the New York Times. The resister to change is the president this time, rebukes the American newspaper, who regrets that the president did not discuss in more detail the pension reform and the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years old. , when it sparked a major protest movement in France.
No political Big Bang
In the speech, “few concrete proposals”, also notes the daily. “Those, if any, who expected this intervention to change course will have been disappointed. […] No question of a big political bang”, he sums up. The president especially pronounced a “new start operation”, a form of “counter-offensive”, formulates the Swiss newspaper The weather. 100 days, to turn the page and get the French back on track, a form of repetition of the first hours of his five-year term.
At least there is the “carrot”, underlines the Guardian. “In an attempt to appease public opinion, Emmanuel Macron has promised a series of concrete measures aimed at increasing salaries and careers, as well as improving the education, health and justice systems”, details the daily. British. Four projects emerge: work, immigration, emergencies and school.
A president who speaks alone
Still, much of Monday’s speech seemed hazy from an outsider’s perspective. “We do not know how and when these texts will be examined, nor what they will contain”, he notes however. A form of evanescence which is unanimous, as much in the foreign press as in the national press.
For the moment, the president walks alone, and speaks alone, summarizes The evening, Belgian daily. “He, the vertical president, speaking from his palace to the French who accuse him of not understanding their concerns… The reproaches did not even wait for the camera to turn off”, criticizes the newspaper, one of the harshest on the subject. “The president refuses to apologize, while his popularity rating collapses”, also titles the Times. If the pension reform is the most unpopular of his five-year term, the expected new impetus is struggling to emerge. In any case, it will not come from the words spoken on Monday, according to the foreign press.