Macron Vows to Continue Reforms Despite Protests

• 01.22.2019, 11:17
•  Europe,  World

Frederick Florin/Reuters

President Emmanuel Macron told dozens of the world’s most powerful executives on Monday that he would not follow the path of guillotined French royals and would continue to reform the French economy despite a sometimes violent popular revolt, Reuters reports.

For the second year running, Macron hosted corporate A-listers like Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel and JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon at a pre-Davos dinner at Versailles.

Exactly 226 years after the decapitation of Louis XVI, who failed to plug the crown’s dismal finances and quell popular discontent over a sclerotic feudal society, Macron started his speech by invoking the king and his wife Marie-Antoinette.

"If they met such an end, it is because they had given up on reforming," Macron told the guests, according to his office.

Macron told the business leaders the "yellow vest" movement was part of a bigger picture of middle-class angst over globalization that gave rise to Brexit in Britain, as well as the rise of populist parties in Germany or Italy.

"The solution to the crisis is not to roll back what we have done in the past 18 months," he said.