Macron insists that the pension reform is "necessary" and is confident that it will enter into force this year

He understands the "legitimate anger" on the part of the citizenry, but condemns the violence in the protests

MADRID, 22 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has vehemently defended this Wednesday the pension reform that has brought thousands of people to the streets throughout the country and has led to motions of censure against his government, stressing that it is a "necessary" law and that, when applying it, foreseeably this same year, thinks of the "general interest of the country".

Macron has broken this Wednesday the silence maintained since last Friday his government forced the parliamentary approval of a controversial reform, at the cost of two motions of censure being voted on Monday that obtained unprecedented support in the current legislature from the opposition.

The text raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 years and extends the minimum contribution period. Macron has explained in an interview with TF1 and France 2 that he has not undertaken these changes for "pleasure", but to guarantee the survival of the pension system: "I would have preferred not to do it".

The president, who will wait for the evaluation of the law by the Constitutional Council to promulgate it, has explained that, when it entered the labor market, France had barely ten million pensioners and, by the 2030s, "there will be 20 million". .

Macron has defended other economic measures adopted since his arrival at the Élysée -for example, the rise in the minimum wage- and has questioned the role of the political opposition, which he has accused of concealing a "magic formula" in its proposals that it would be the deficit and that would imply mortgaging future generations at the cost of not undertaking changes today.

In contrast, he has proposed an "exceptional contribution" from the extraordinary profits of companies, in such a way that large companies go from "repurchasing their own shares" thanks to their profits to "distributing more to their employees."

The president has admitted that all this controversy can take its toll on him in the polls and that, on the street, there is "legitimate anger." On the role of the unions, which this Thursday have called new strikes to make clear their disagreement with the reform, Macron has regretted that they have not been willing to negotiate some kind of compromise measure.

Likewise, and although it has recognized the right of unions to mobilize, it has also made it clear that "it will not tolerate any excess".

In this way, he has criticized the violent incidents registered in the protests of recent nights, especially in Paris, and has claimed that the blockades do not prevent us from carrying out "as normal a life as possible". "We cannot accept neither the factions nor the factions", he has sentenced in relation to the spontaneous concentrations.

On the future of the current cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, Macron has not made any changes in terms of names or measures. In fact, he has stressed that Borne has assumed in the first person the parliamentary responsibility that she has meant to carry out a proposal that, as she has recalled, did save the process in the Senate with a majority.

"(Borne) already said it in Parliament. If there is an alternative majority, let it express itself. On Monday, it became clear that there was no alternative majority," Macron added.

On Tuesday, the president had already made it clear in a meeting at the Elysee with the parties that support the Government that there would be no changes in the cabinet nor a potential dissolution of the National Assembly or a referendum to influence citizen opinion.