Since President Macron launched his drive to raise France’s retirement age to 64, protesters have responded by setting fire to bins, hurling paving stones and even hanging him in effigy. 

France’s constitutional court has approved the president’s plans to raise the retirement age, and this action of the parliament made the situation worse.  

Now his attempt to make peace with his people risks being drowned out by the clatter of ladles against cooking pots.

After his pensions law was pushed through parliament by decree in the face of overwhelming public opposition the beleaguered president promised “100 days of appeasement, unity, ambition and action for France”. The period culminates on July 14, the country’s national day (and the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in 1789), by which time, Macron declared, “we must be able to take stock”.