It is in these primary school classrooms of France’s most deprived neighbourhoods that the centrist president Emmanuel Macron wants his record in office to be considered. When he came to power five years ago – a former banker who had served as economy minister under the left – he promised a “pragmatic” cherrypicking of ideas from left and right that would both liberalise the economy and end the inequality he said “imprisoned” people by their social origins. Now, as he faces an April re-election battle dominated by concerns over the cost of living, his policy of slashing school class sizes in deprived areas has become key to showing he has governed not only for the elite.
The 1960s school building, near tower block s in the city of Rennes, symbolises one of France’s most enduring problems: the poverty trap. A pupil born and schooled in an area like this has less chance of escaping their socio-economic background than in most other developed nations, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
When Macron took office in 2017 he promised the biggest overhaul of the French social model and welfare system in modern history and he swiftly loosened the country’s strict labour laws by decree. But pro-business policies in tandem with his transformation of the wealth tax into a property tax saw him labelled “ president of the rich”. Then came two huge crises – first the gilets jaunes antigovernment revolt, followed by the Covid pandemic, which has killed more than 130,000 people in France. Macron turned to state interventionism and vast public spending. He boasted of “nationalising wages” to keep the country afloat.
この記事は The Guardian の February 28, 2022 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は The Guardian の February 28, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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