Victoria Jelinek

“Europe and the world are waiting for us to defend the spirit of enlightenment everywhere.” Emmanuel Macron

I listened to Emmanuelle Macron’s address to the Republic and it was fantastic.

He was conciliatory, reflective, and humbled. He has realized that for his presidency and his party to survive, he has to change. This adaptability is ideal in a president. He was specific about the changes that he will implement in response to the Gilets Jaunes movement. He was emotionally sensitive to the issues around retirees, divorcees, and the poor in particular. He has listened. He accepted responsiblity for not paying attention to the vulnerable in the nation. And even as he has compromised, he made a point of reiterating the obvious – that protest is to be respected, but peace and collectivism is the objective, not chaos and violence. Communication has been a problem with this GJ movement ‘cause there is not, technically, leadership, and when Macron’s administration has attempted to speak with the protestors, and those from the GJ movement have tried to respond, they have been heckled by their compatriots for speaking to the government.

I respect Macron, and I believe he has absolutely paid attention to the grievances, despite their being arguably incoherent – they want lower taxes yet they ALSO want more public services. He has proposed that he will meet with citizens throughout the country and through discussion these people will, perhaps, understand how much it does cost to run hospitals, train stations, and in order to provide public services to the general public, including enacting clean energy policies to help the environment. It can’t happen without taxing the citizenry, though there is credence in making sure the taxation takes into account capability and geographic situation as much as is possible.

Even as there is justifiable criticism that the very rich are evading their taxes and are growing richer under Macron, he did not mention adhering to the wealth tax. He did say, however, that there is the need to enforce tax evasion and, ideally, that employers should pay employees an annual tax-free bonus.

This evening, Macron proposed the following specific fixes in response to the GJ movement:

• Retirees will be tax free up to 2,000 euros received in pension per month.
• There will be a rise in minimum wage of 100euros per month that will not be additionally taxed.
• He has scrapped the fuel tax (even as it is necessary for environmental change).

These things might land him in trouble with the EU because it will cost the French government a great deal to pay for these changes, particularly without the additional tax revenue. And the benefits will not be visible for some time, lamentable in the ‘quick fix’ attention spans of today and with the individuals that compose this movement.

In response to the criticism that he, Macron, is too Paris-centric, he said that he will visit mayors and their citizens throughout France. In normal France, the France pre-En Marche in which the rulebook was torn up, those in power would create a commission to investigate, then pile it up with other findings. Macron will meet with local representatives in order to listen to the citizenry’s particular needs based on their geographic location and consequently unique problems, and together attempt to find solutions to economic inequality.