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What can we expect from Macron’s live interview on the controversial pension reforms?

After a week of political turmoil, strikes and clashes between police and protesters in France, president Emmanuel Macron is set to address the French people directly - so what will he say?

What can we expect from Macron's live interview on the controversial pension reforms?
Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on Wednesday. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

UPDATE: Click here to hear what a defiant Macron had to say about pension reform, his one regret and how he accepts being unpopular.

The man behind the pension reform that has sparked weeks of strike in France, a political crisis and burning barricades will on Wednesday address the nation.

Emmanuel Macron will give an interview to TV channel TF1 on their lunchtime show on Wednesday, marking the first time he has spoken directly to the population about pension reform since the political debates began.

So what can we expect? 

This will be a live interview, in which Macron answers questions from the French TV stations TF1 and France 2. It will screen at 1pm.

What will he not say?

Macron aides have told the French press that he will not announce that he is dissolving parliament, not will he announce a reshuffle of the government or a referendum on the pension reform.

It hasn’t explicitly been said, but it seems very unlikely that he will announce the thing that protesters have been calling for all week; his own resignation. 

So what will he say? 

We don’t know at this stage, but it seems that Macron is intent on defending the reforms, and wants to speak directly to the French people in a live interview and explain to them why the pension reforms are necessary.

He was reported as saying on Tuesday that: “Obviously, we have not managed to share the merits of this reform with the public.”

It seems that the president will opt for pédagogie – or teaching. Some disillusioned French voters refer to it as ‘Macronsplaining’.

Why now?

Macron himself has largely been absent from the pensions debate, either though the reform is one of his flagship proposals.

Part of this is due to the conventions of French politics; traditionally the president proposes ideas and it is up to the prime minister – who is leader of the government – to guide them through the parliamentary process.

This means that the task of defending the controversial reforms in public has largely fallen to prime minister Elisabeth Borne, as well as labour minister Olivier Dussopt and government spokesman Olivier Véran. It was these three who were burned in effigy by protesters in Dijon, along with Macron.

The last time Macron spoke in detail in public on pension reform was during the election campaign for the 2022 presidential elections – he was re-elected on a platform that included pension reform, and he argues that it is this that gives him a mandate, despite the lack of parliamentary support.

Will he announce the withdrawal or changes to the reform?

The mood in government appears to be a defiant one, but there could be concessions made on certain aspects of the reform, possibly including the timetable for beginning the changes.

At a meeting with his senior ministers on Tuesday, Macron called on his troops to provide ideas in the “next two to three weeks” with a view to adopting “a change in method and reform agenda,” according to a participant who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

At present the government intends to begin the first changes to the pension system in September, with the pension age fully raised from 62 to 64 by 2030.

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POLITICS

France to sell Russian oligarch’s Riviera chateau

French authorities have put up for sale a luxurious multi-million-euro chateau seized from the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky who died in 2013 and was a sworn opponent of President Vladimir Putin, the agency handling confiscated assets said on Friday.

France to sell Russian oligarch's Riviera chateau

Berezovsky acquired the Chateau de la Garoupe on the Cote d’Azur in the 1990s while post-Soviet Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin was in power and the tycoon was considered one of the most powerful people in the country.

But it was confiscated by French authorities in 2015, two years after Berezovsky was found dead in exile at his home in England in circumstances that have never been fully explained. He had by then become a bitter opponent of Putin.

A screenshot from Google Maps, showing the Chateau de la Garoupe along the coast.

The property was built on the prestigious Cap d’Antibes by the British industrialist and MP Charles McLaren, and its rich history has seen it associated with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway.

The chateau “represents exceptional architectural and cultural heritage. Its acquisition offers a unique opportunity to own a prestigious residence steeped in history in an enchanting setting,” France’s Agrasc agency on confiscated assets said in a statement.

Interested parties can express their interest from June 16th to July 17th and those validated as possible buyers can submit bids from September.

The chateau, like the neighbouring property of the Clocher (Belltower) de la Garoupe, also owned by Berezovsky, was confiscated after being judged to be the proceeds of money laundering committed by investment company Sifi and its manager, Jean-Louis Bordes.

They were ruled to have acted as a front for Berezovsky.

Reacting in response to an initial complaint filed by Russia, the French authorities needed 10 years to unravel the complex history of purchases including that of the Chateau de la Garoupe in December 1996.

The Cote d’Azur has been popular with rich Russians going back to visits from the imperial family at the turn of the century.

After the collapse of the USSR, it became a favourite playground for the country’s oligarchs.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sanctions from the West has made owning property and even entering France increasingly problematic for many Russians.

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