By Oyintari Ben
Protesters met French President Emmanuel Macron with boos and cries for his resignation in his first public appearance since he signed a law raising the retirement age.
Macron encountered hostile banners and pot-banging while visiting a factory in the eastern Alsace region. Unionised employees briefly turned off the factory’s electricity.
Then, when he passed through a gathering in a neighbouring village, some people yelled, “Macron, resign!” and one man said, “We don’t want this pension (reform); what don’t you get?”
He was running a crooked regime, said another man, adding, “You’ll fall soon, just wait and see.”
A few people also applauded; one man advised Macron to “hang in there,” and another congratulated him for his efforts and several requested photographs.
However, the response was largely unfavourable, even in a region that supported Macron more than the national average in the 2022 presidential election.
A measure raising the retirement age, which would require people to work until they are 64, was signed into law by Macron over the weekend.
That came after three months of demonstrations that drew crowds and occasionally devolved into violence. According to polls, a sizable majority of voters are against the reform.
The centrist president said he was alright with people expressing anger in Selestat but that “the country must move forward.”
When he was touring the factory earlier, Macron dismissed the outward sign of unhappiness, saying, “Pans won’t help France move forward.”
To emphasise the advantages of France’s employment legalisation, he stated that it was impossible for a society to pay attention to simply those who “make the most noise.”
According to Macron and his administration, the goal is to move on and focus on other initiatives related to working conditions, law and order, education, and health-related issues.
But his performance at Selestat made it evident that many people weren’t ready to move on. They weren’t the only ones, either.
A “French Spiderman”-style free climber scaled a 38-story skyscraper in Paris to express his opposition to the pension law.
Alain Robert remarked, “I’m here to tell Emmanuel Macron to return to earth by climbing without a safety net.
