Emmanuel Macron

Building factories to boost job creation and make France more independent - that's President Emmanuel Macron's ambition for the French economy.

It's a big challenge, as France reels from protracted protests, rising food and energy prices and other fallout from the Ukraine war.

Europe is falling short as a single strategic actor and French President Emmanuel Macron never misses the opportunity to remind us. Sometimes in a barely diplomatic way. His recent statements have provoked intense controversy and debate. It was not so much their content as the use of specific words such as "vassal" and "follower," which he used to define what he did not want Europe to be.

French President Emmanuel Macron's highly unpopular pension law passed another hurdle after the Constitutional Council rejected the opposition's second proposal to hold a referendum to limit the retirement age to 62, Reuters reported.

Macron has defied fierce union opposition and weeks of sometimes violent protests against his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

At least 108 policemen and gendarmerie were injured yesterday in France, of which twenty in Paris, during clashes in the course of protests against the pension reform, reported APP and BTA, referring to the French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

291 people were arrested across the country, 90 of them in Paris.

As the unions reported, a million people are expected on the streets in French cities.
Workers staged protest marches across France today, May 1, International Labor Day, unhappy that President Emmanuel Macron raised the retirement age and police fired tear gas in Paris and Nantes in the west of the country.

France will go ahead with structural reforms to overhaul its economy after credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country's debt worthiness, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has told AFP.    

Fitch downgraded France's debt worthiness a notch to "AA-" from "AA" on April 28, claiming the country's "fiscal metrics are weaker than peers".    

French President Emmanuel Macron has given himself 100 days to get the country back on its feet after weeks of protests and public anger over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

He asked the government to start talks with the unions on a wide range of issues.

If the West is not united it will be unable to compete with China. That much is clear. And if we include Australia and Japan in the "West," there is no doubt that their strategic cooperation with the United States is deepening and becoming increasingly necessary.

From French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Beijing to CIA Director William Burns' visit to Saudi Arabia, the past weeks have underlined one thing: the US is standing on the sidelines merely observing events in stark contrast to US' previous role: that of global broker and policeman.

Another night of protests and arrests in France over the controversial pension reform pushed by President Emmanuel Macron.