What to remember from Emmanuel Macron's five-year term?

A British journalist from the Guardian went to Maurepas, a difficult district in the north of Rennes, in Brittany, to meet residents and actors in local life to take stock of the outgoing president.

The choice of location for the report is not insignificant.

“Brittany symbolizes how difficult life has been for many French people over the past two years – but there are signs of change”, warns the British correspondent at the start of her article.  

The best measure of the outgoing president, candidate since March 3 only, is the reduction of staff in the lower classes, believes the author Angelique Chrisafis.

The article also opens with the testimony of a teacher delighted to be able to take time with each of her eleven students.

"This policy of reducing the size of school classes to help disadvantaged children has become Macron's key, can we read in the article. Emmanuel Macron's entourage presents it as his decisive social measure. It is even hailed by some opponents, such as the right-wing presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse. Proof that he was not only the president of the elite".   

From "President of the Rich" to Interventionist Head of State  

At the start of his mandate in 2017, Emmanuel Macron was often described as "president of the Rich", recalls the author.

The one who had promised during his campaign "the biggest overhaul of the social model and the French social protection system in modern history" has above all taken measures in favor of the bosses - by softening the labor laws by decree - and rich, - by transforming wealth tax into land tax -.

But the two successive crises, the sling of the Yellow Vests first and then the Covid-19 pandemic, transformed the head of state considered elitist into an interventionist president, who carried out "vast public expenditure […] to maintain the country afloat."  

With success.

After two years of health crisis, "the French economy has started to rebound faster than expected", can we read in the article, which quotes the American economist Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 2008, which qualified France as a "star performer" in view of the drop in its unemployment.

However, nothing to celebrate for the current president, moderates the newspaper.

"Inflation, rising fuel prices, record distrust of the political class, divisions in society with the rise of identity thinking fueled by the far right, keep the pressure on for Macron." 

A mandate disrupted by the pandemic 

Because poverty persists in the country.

The many charities, particularly in demand during the pandemic "alone symbolize how difficult life has become for many French people over the past two years", continues the editor.

"The Covid crisis has been very revealing," said Pheng Ly, who works for the La Cohue association, a structure that distributes food parcels and helps people return to work.

"The pandemic has exposed the inequalities that exist in disadvantaged neighborhoods like this, where many people live below the poverty line, and where since the 1960s, poverty and misery have been concentrated in a small area" , explains the resident in the columns of the newspaper.

Another, questioned by the journalist, 

It must be said that "she believed Emmanuel when he promised to introduce a minimum pension of €1,000 per month for those who had worked all their lives", continues the newspaper.

"But the pension reform proposed by Macron led to demonstrations that lasted longer than any strike since May 1968, and the planned changes were suspended by the pandemic", summarizes the correspondent.  

Rise of identity tensions 

When he was elected, Emmanuel Macron, who came before Marine Le Pen, also guaranteed that after his five-year term, "there would be no more reason to vote for the extremes", abounds The Guardian.

But after interviewing residents of the Maurepas district, the newspaper's conclusions are clear: "The divisions in society remain. Macron's response to terrorism and the beheading, in 2020, of the teacher Samuel Paty was introduce tougher legislation against religious separatism."

It only made the situation worse.

"Reports of anti-Muslim acts increased by 32% in 2021." 

Florian Bachelier, MP for the presidential majority in Ille-et-Vilaine, unsurprisingly takes a less critical look at Emmanuel Macron.

Certainly, "the pandemic has traumatized the French in many ways: the whole country has suddenly become aware of individual and collective vulnerabilities", declares the elected LREM to the newspaper.

But the former lawyer is also quick to list the measures which, according to him, have improved the daily lives of the French, such as the development of apprenticeship for young people, the reduction in income tax, the abolition of housing tax for many French people and the extension of paternity leave to 28 days.

"What stands out is that the president protected the French - even more so during the turbulent times of the pandemic",  

Growing distrust of elected officials 

There remains a great mistrust of elected officials.

It is also manifested by the crisis of yellow vests.

Since then, it always seems to be present, according to the daily.

"The Yellow Vests revolt, which began in the fall of 2018 and continued into 2019, marked a turning point in Macron's presidency. What started as an anti-fuel tax movement became a protest long-running anti-government campaign, sparking the worst unrest Paris has seen in decades."

Questioned by Angelique Chrisafis, Tristan Lozach, a 26-year-old young man living near Brieux, assures us that if the Yellow Vests demonstrations were to be repeated, he would return there without hesitation.

“There were, at that time, many people in France who were afraid to say that

they suffered or lived in misery, the demonstrations allowed them to express themselves", he declared to the journalist. "And I think that changed Emmanuel Macron.

He no longer addresses people in the same way he did three years ago, when he made comments on the street that sounded dismissive." 

Goulwen Lorcy, also interviewed by the Guardian, thinks that the exercise of power has changed Emmanuel Macron.

At the head of a small Breton start-up, she recounts having been contacted by the State to quickly create a computer system intended for French hospitals.

The health crisis made it possible for the president to understand "that many 'solutions were regional', and not only from Paris", she notes.     

At the end of the article, the English journalist meets a farmer.

Julien Rouxel, 22, is preparing to take over the small dairy farm that has belonged to his family for five generations, in Plédran.

Despite everything, he says he is "optimistic for the future".

Although he has backed protests by pig and dairy farmers against supermarkets, accused of not giving fair prices for produce, he doesn't blame the president.

"Emmanuel Macron - the poor - I do not criticize him because he has a lot to do and he has done his best, he concludes in the article. But there is still a question: does he he listened enough to the French? Maybe not." 

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