As part of his continued attempt to move past his government’s contentious pensions reform, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced two billion euros of tax cuts for the middle class before the end of his term.

In a televised interview Monday evening, Macron said he wants to “concentrate” two billion euros of tax cuts on people “who work hard, who want to raise their children well and who today, because the cost of living has increased… have trouble making ends meet at the end of the month”.

Without specifying specific measures, the president said he has asked his government to come up with proposals to focus cuts on the middle class, which he defined in a weekend interview as “those who are too rich to receive aid and not rich enough to live well”, who earn between 1,500 and 2,500 euros a month.

Shifting away from pension reform

The president has focused on economics in recent weeks – jobs and reindustrialisation – in an attempt to shift away from the pension reform, which he repeated was “necessary to guarantee the balance of our accounts and the future of our children”.

Acknowledging the opposition to the reform, he insisted that it was nevertheless important not to change course.

“Even when there is disagreement, one does not change, one does not shift course,” he said. “Investors see the power of what we did.”

Macron denied accusations that he had acted with contempt during the pension reform debates, pointing out to the interviewer, Gilles Bouleau, that if he were contemptuous, he would not be reaching out to people as he has done as a politician.

“When you have contempt, you don’t care. Real contempt is lying to people. That’s contempt,” he said.

Training Ukrainian fighter pilots

Addressing the war in Ukraine, Macron said he “opened the door” to training Ukrainian fighter pilots.

A day after a surprise meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris, Macron said that several other European countries are ready to train fighter pilots, he said he believed there are ongoing discussions with the United States.

“We need to start training today, that is the agreement we made with several European countries,” he said, without specifying the training.

“France’s strategy is simple, it is to help Ukraine resist,” he said, adding that any potential future deliveries of fighter planes to Ukraine remains “a theoretical debate”.

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