By Athena Papakosta

“It’s not the pots that will make France move forward,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on his first trip to the country after being ratified by the Constitutional Council. of the pension reform which raises the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years.

Emmanuel Macron visited a factory in a village in Alsace where protesters were waiting for him banging pans and pots. Others had gathered in front of the local town hall. Some whistled, others played and whistled. Police forces eventually pushed them up to 200 meters away.

“The reality of France is not only those who make noise with pots,” Macron said before adding that “maybe we should reboot the French pot industry. We don’t produce enough.”

The new – in this case but essentially timeless in France – norm of demonstrations with pots and pans began last Monday in an attempt by French citizens to send a new message to the Elysee: “since you don’t listen to us, we won’t listen to you either ».

Emmanuel Macron is trying to overcome the crisis that his pension reform has brought to French society and he is trying to achieve this goal by traveling to different regions of France. However, at the same time, his popularity has taken a lot and even since the first year of his second term, while he governs without a majority in the French national assembly in which the French opposition is waiting for him in the… corner.

French society, at the present moment, does not trust the country’s political institutions at all and for the moment the only one who benefits from this development is none other than the extreme right, Marine Le Pen who leads up to ten points of Emmanuel Macron by taking advantage of ongoing crisis.

300 demonstrators were waiting for the French president on Tuesday night in Saint-Denis to express their anger in person, reminding him that the reserves of social discontent have not yet been exhausted. They call him “Jupiter”, ironically, because of his arrogance for which they accuse him and call him to resign. Images like this recall the era of the yellow vests back in 2018 and 2019 while we recall that in 2021, a young man had slapped the French president on his tour in the south of France.

From Macron’s point of view, beyond travel, any effort to reverse the climate has yet to materialize. In his speech on Monday, the French president promised to focus on the sectors of Labour, Justice and Health by taking measures aimed at increasing incomes, tackling crime and upgrading Social Services. However, the French people, despite the ratification of the reform by the Constitutional Council, do not agree and now renew their May Day appointment with a grand march against the pension reform.