Why Business-Friendly Reforms Are Sparking Street Protests in France

Updated on September 21 at 6:56 a.m. ET

After decades of fraught attempts at reforming France’s sacrosanct labor code, French President Emmanuel Macron will use a presidential decree Friday to push through a series of business-friendly reforms. The aim is to give greater leeway to employers and to tackle the country’s near double-digit unemployment rate. It’s an ambitious plan for a new leader like Macron, and one that has already prompted street protests by labor unions opposed to it. But the 39-year-old leader, armed with a parliamentary majority, remains undeterred.

“I was very clear during my campaign about the reforms,” Macron CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour Tuesday. “I explained those reforms, I presented those reforms during weeks and weeks, and I was elected on those reforms. I do believe in democracy, and democracy is not on the street. They voted.”