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French President Emmanuel Macron's popularity has plummeted to its lowest mark since he took office tens months ago. A new poll published by BVA Friday shows 57 percent of the French population has a negative opinion about the president.
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His approval rating has dropped three percentage points from last month and 12 percentage points since December. Currently, 40 percent of the French population expressed a favorable opinion of the president, according to Politico.
“Too arrogant ... too many reforms ... president for the wealthy” formed the bulk of complaints the poll revealed.
Macron's approval rating decline comes amid nationwide protests where tens of thousands of nurses, teachers, airline controllers, train conductors and a host of other public sector workers went on strike yesterday in solidarity against Macron's reforms. The actions caused widespread travel disruption nationwide.
An estimated 200,000 people took to the streets to express their objections to several of the moves initiated by Macron. Despite standing by labor reforms proposed by Macron, the government is concerned about the protests mushrooming further.
"What we need to avoid is that all the grievances fuse together, as was the case in 1995," a government official said in reference to France's largest strike in decades. The protests have forced the French administration to abandon labor reform plans.
Macron's administration plans to reduce public sector jobs by 120,000 by 2020, according to Express.
Laurent Berger, head of France's largest union, CFDT, said workers are not in accord with the plans and are up for the challenge. “Either they (the government) listen to us, and it will have been just a warning shot, or they don't listen to us and then, let me tell you that public sector workers are very mobilized," he said.
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