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Emmanuel Macron has vowed to pursue the financial reforms begun since he grew to become French president in 2017 however stopped in need of confirming that he’ll stand for re-election subsequent April, regardless of his lead in opinion polls and widespread expectations that he’ll search a second time period.
In a two-hour primetime tv interview on TF1 on Wednesday evening, Macron defended his document over the previous four-and-a-half years in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic, launching reforms to liberalise the economic system and tackling the anti-government gilets jaunes demonstrations, in addition to responding to assaults by Islamist extremists.
He mentioned that he had learnt to like the French greater than ever but additionally admitted that he had usually erred. “I make errors, sure, many,” mentioned Macron, who has been accused by rivals of being an boastful president of the wealthy. “I attempt to not repeat them.”
Opposition politicians criticised Macron and TF1 for what they painted as a gentle interview that allowed the president to make a case for re-election with out formally declaring his marketing campaign.
“It’s a propaganda broadcast by a candidate,” mentioned Eric Ciotti of the rightwing Les Républicains, whose nominee has an opportunity of difficult Macron, in accordance with opinion polls. “The Elysée is seized by panic over the candidature of Valérie Pécresse,” Ciotti mentioned in a debate on TF1 instantly after the interview.
Jordan Bardella of Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement Nationwide referred to as Macron a “self-satisfied” president who was clearly a candidate. Boris Vallaud of the Socialist get together mentioned the interview, billed as being about the place France was headed, as a substitute provided “rather a lot about the place Macron is with himself”.
Macron reiterated the necessity to modernise France’s expensive pension techniques — a landmark reform suspended in the course of the pandemic — by simplifying the 42 completely different regimes in place. However he accepted that his plan to interchange them with a single system had provoked an excessive amount of concern and must be modified.
He additionally mentioned it was inevitable that the retirement age would rise from 62 to make sure that pensions have been sustainable. “We should all be ready for the concept that we work longer,” he mentioned.
Macron’s opponents on the fitting and the far-right, together with the anti-immigration polemicist Eric Zemmour, have made immigration and regulation and order essentially the most outstanding themes of early campaigning, prompting Macron to reassert his willpower to “management” immigration with out stopping it utterly, as a few of his rivals have pledged.
“There has by no means been zero immigration,” Macron mentioned. “Sure, we’ve an issue of managing it. [But] we’d like this immigration of staff, in a restricted, selective and managed option to energy our economic system.”
An opinion ballot printed on Wednesday by Harris Interactive for Challenges journal gave Macron the lead in voting intentions for the primary spherical of the presidential election, with 24 per cent, adopted by Pécresse with 17 per cent, Le Pen with 16 and Zemmour with 15.
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