Who is going to believe Emmanuel Macron?

The crucial question for Emmanuel Macron in the aftermath of his televised speech on Monday night is one of credibility.

French President Emmanuel Macron. © AP / Michel Euler

The French president has proposed the establishment of a new deal for French workers, says Libération.

Who is going to believe him?

“But who is going to believe him,” wonders the left-leaning daily, “three years after his speech about the front lines of the French economy”?

That was another televised address, in April 2020, to a nation struggling with the Covid lockdown. The president evoked the health workers, doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers who were risking their lives to save others.

And he praised those who could not hide at home from the virus, the farmers, teachers, drivers, electricians, labourers, cleaners, security staff, who had to show up, and who were so badly paid for their efforts.

And what happened, asks Libération. Nothing. The health service is as bad if not worse than before the crisis. The poorly-paid are just as poor. And now they face two more years of ill-paid before they can retire in poverty.

Libération does not believe in Macron’s new deal.

'No room to manoeuver'

Catholic La Croix tries to be a bit less sceptical.

The president wants to see a surge of national energy, says the Catholic paper, 100 days of peace, unity and action for the future of France. With frank discussions between the social partners. He stopped short of a chicken in every pot, but only just.

Right wing Le Figaro says the president wants peace. But he faces an angry nation, a strengthened trade union movement, bosses who are frightened by the way in which the disruptions of the pension reform saga may work to the disadvantage of investment, productivity and profit.

Emmanuel Macron, to quote centrist Le Monde, “has practically no room to manoeuver”.

He has asked for 100 days, says Le Monde. But that period in politics is usually the start of a new mandate, the dynamic, joyful period when real change still seems possible.

Historically, the 100 days evoke the disastrous end to the military career of Napoléon, a dangerous irony which will not have escaped Emmanuelle Macron.

But the French leader is determined to keep working to avoid the twin traps of “paralysis and overreaction”.

For the French leader, the pension reform is done and dusted. Since we’ll all have to work longer, he suggests, let’s work together to make work more agreeable.