After his social measures, Emmanuel Macron obtained Tuesday 11th December a limitation of the bank fees, which will be added to the social aids announced the day before.
Another concrete gesture to try to appease ” yellow vests ” always angry: Emmanuel Macron obtained Tuesday 11th December a limitation of bank charges , which will be added to the social benefits announced Monday.
The head of state and continued its efforts to calm a movement that did not seem to die Tuesday, the “yellow vests” judging insufficient concessions even if the overall support of the French movement decreases.
Bank charges frozen in 2019
Convened at the Elysee Palace, bosses of major French banks have agreed to freeze their bank charges for 2019 and to cap the cost of banking incidents to 25 euros a month for the 3.6 million “most fragile” people.
What will return, according to the Bank of France, to give households 500 to 600 million euros of purchasing power.
Both the executive and the banking sector were clearly aware of the urgency to respond to the protesters’ anger. Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron will receive large companies, which he will also require efforts.
ecause for the fourth week of mobilization, although a little less numerous, the “yellow vests” continued their operations of blockades and demonstrations on the roads and roundabouts across France.
A little more than 1900 protesters and about forty blockade operations were identified Tuesday morning, according to a police source interviewed by AFP.
The French divided on the continuation of the movement
But several polls show that now about half of the French supports the movement, against more than three-quarters last week. Part of the opinion believes that the ads correspond to the demands of the protesters.
The government conducted a massive after-sales service on Tuesday to detail the purchasing power assistance measures announced the previous day by the President of the Republic. Highly anticipated, his speech was attended by 23 million people, an absolute record for an official statement.
Edouard Philippe stepped on Tuesday in front of the Assembly to defend the measures announced, amounting to about 10 billion euros, which will widen the public deficit.
He returned in particular to the flagship announcement of the day before, an increase of 100 euros wages at the Smic via an increased premium activity. “When did we increase the Smic by a level of 100 euros? We want to go much further, much stronger and much faster, “he said, ensuring that this measure still vague outline would include all those paid minimum wage.
He also recalled the exemption from the increase in the CSG for pensioners earning less than 2000 euros per month, which will now in his view concern 70% of retirees, the tax-free overtime and the call for companies to pay a bonus end year without tax or charges.
Several large companies will pay a bonus of 1000 euros
Good students, several large companies have already announced that they would pay a bonus of 1000 euros to their employees, such as Orange, Altice, Iliad and Publicis.
The Prime Minister has also strongly denounced threats and attacks against elected officials, in particular parliamentarians LREM. “It’s very serious,” he warned.
To comfort the elected “very experienced” by these aggression, Emmanuel Macron received Tuesday evening at the Elysee all parliamentarians LREM and MoDem, a large-scale meeting he has not organised for months.
The measures announced Monday night were however not considered sufficient by many protesters, who announced their determination to continue the blockages and called for an “act V” Saturday throughout France.
“At the time, I told myself that Macron had heard a little,” said Tuesday to AFP Thomas Miralles, spokesperson for the “yellow vests” of the Pyrenees-Orientales.
“But when we look in detail, in fact not at all.”
Like him, many were the “yellow vests” to express their dissatisfaction. Others welcomed the ads more positively. Jacline Mouraud, spokeswoman deemed moderate, called for a “truce”, hailing “progress”.
The deficit should widen
The announced measures may in any case significantly widen the deficit, which according to Gerard Darmanin could climb to 2.5% excluding the cost of the transformation of the CICE into lower expenses (0.9%), or 3.4% instead of 2.8% so far.
“The impact of the announcements made by President Macron on the French deficit will be followed with” attention, warned the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici.
On the union side, the ads were variously appreciated. Laurent Berger (CFDT) saw “a real gesture on the purchasing power of the most modest households”, but denounced the lack of measure of “tax justice”. Emmanuel Macron “did not understand the anger that is expressed,” condemned the CGT.
Satisfied, the Medef applauded measures that “meet expectations without penalising the competitiveness of companies”.
The deputies left have meanwhile filed a motion of censure, which will be put to the vote on Thursday.
