{"id":25033,"date":"2018-12-10T21:23:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T21:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25033"},"modified":"2018-12-10T21:23:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T21:23:35","slug":"macron-addresses-the-nation-announces-rise-in-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25033","title":{"rendered":"Macron addresses the nation; announces rise in minimum wage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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French President Emmanuel\u00a0<\/span>Macron<\/a> announced a range of conciliatory measures aimed at appeasing “yellow vest<\/a>” protesters, including increasing the minimum wage and cancelling a planned social security tax hike for pensioners earning less than 2,000 euros.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging on Monday he may have “hurt” people with some of his statements, Macron refused to reinstate a wealth tax and to back down on his reform agenda, which he said would proceed in 2019 with overhauls of pensions, unemployment benefits and public expenditures.<\/p>\n

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https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/12\/happening-france-yellow-vest-movement-explained-181204153014250.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“We will respond to the economic and social urgency with strong measures, by cutting taxes more rapidly, by keeping our spending under control, but not with U-turns,” he said in a televised address.<\/p>\n

“The salary of a worker on basic income will increase by 100 euros per month starting in 2019,” said Macron. “We want a France where we can live with dignity.”<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old leader said his government will also ask private employers to pay their workers year-end bonuses if they’re able to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Demonstrators held a fourth round of protests on Saturday to press for further concessions on reducing inequality.<\/p>\n

The month-long campaign of nationwide road blockades and weekend protests in Paris, three of which degenerated into destruction and looting, have taken a toll on the French economy with an estimated $1.5bn in losses.<\/p>\n

Political opponents, who have largely failed so far to tap into the discontent from the leaderless “yellow vest”, criticised Macron’s response on Monday as insufficient.<\/p>\n

“Emmanuel Macron thought he could hand out some cash to calm the citizen’s insurrection that has erupted,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the far-left La France Insoumise, said.<\/p>\n

“I believe that Act V [of the protests] will play out on Saturday,” he said referring to a new round of protests planned this weekend.<\/p>\n

One of the faces of the “yellow vest” movement appeared unconvinced as well.<\/p>\n

“In terms of substance, these are half measures. We can feel that Macron has got a lot more to give,” Benjamin Cauchy, who met the French leader last week, told France 2 television.<\/p>\n

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WATCH: France protests – Businesses lose more than $1.5 bn (02:00)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

In an attempt to quell the revolt, the government agreed last week to cancel a planned increase in anti-pollution fuel taxes – the spark behind the protests in car-dependent rural and suburban France.<\/p>\n

But the move was seen as too little, too late.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French President Emmanuel\u00a0Macron announced a range of conciliatory measures aimed at appeasing “yellow vest” protesters, including increasing the minimum wage and cancelling a planned social security tax hike for pensioners earning less than 2,000 euros. While acknowledging on Monday he may have “hurt” people with some of his statements, Macron refused to reinstate a wealth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":25035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}