The young centrist’s social and economic reforms, including a controversial hike in fuel prices, have angered the French and dragged his poll numbers down to unprecedented lows. “You’re not welcome here!” shouted Renault worker and unionist Samuel Beauvois as the president toured a Renault SA factory in the northern town of Maubeuge, hailed in the region as a model of productivity. “The money [Renault CEO] Carlos Ghosm gives us for our work, you take straight back out of our pockets. I’ve worked for Renault for 27 years and it is Renault that feeds me – not you Mr Macron… We’re doing just fine without you,” the disgruntled worker continued.
Mr Macron tried, somewhat in vain, to defend his track record.
“There are days when people are angry. I need to explain what I do to those who are angry, to respect them and listen to them. That’s what I do,” he said, as he promised Mr Beauvois to “stand by those who fight”.
“You who fight every day, you want to live in dignity and do more to ensure a better future for your children… I understand your anger, but the key to the answer is to educate our youths, and to make sure that everyone can progress in society,” he insisted.
Mr Macron is coming off a difficult week following a chaotic tour of France’s World War One battlefields ahead of this weekend’s Armistice Day commemorations, during which citizens he hoped to reconnect with instead chided him over pension cuts, sluggish growth and rising fuel prices.
Asked whether he regretted embarking on the tour and exposing himself to criticism, he said: “No, it’s a real pleasure. Look at me – I’m very happy. I never thought it would be easy.”
His trip, however, was nearly ruined by a controversy surrounding Marshal Philippe Pétain, a general who subsequently became a top collaborator with the Nazi regime in World War Two.
Mr Macron angered France’s Jewish community on Wednesday after he said that Marshal Pétain was a “great soldier” even through he had made “disastrous choices” during the Nazi occupation of France.
But government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux later denounced a “false controversy,” saying that the “glory” Marshal Pétain earned in Verdun during the first world war “can be neither contested nor go unrecognised by the nation”.
The president’s so-called battlefield tour ends this Sunday, when around 70 leaders including US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, meet in Paris to attend ceremonies marking the centennial of the end of the first world war.
Most leaders – excluding Mr Trump – will also take part in a peace summit hosted by Mr Macron later in the day.
The young centrist, who has repeatedly warned of rising nationalism and positioned himself as a defender of democracy, warned earlier this week that “peace in Europe is precarious”.