PARIS, April 5 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said unions' strikes and protests were "legitimate" but would not dictate on the government the policy it should take.
"Today there are issues which the government had announced that reactions (and) protests that are completely legitimate, which suggest (more) work, continuous explanations," Macron said during a visit in northwestern city of Rouen.
However, the social movement "should not prevent the government to govern, to continue making decisions and to do important things for millions of our fellow citizens", he added.
On Monday evening, the country's unions started a series of month-rolling nationwide rail strikes with a wave of two successive days out of every five days.
They planned 36 days of action for April-June period, a move that may paralyze the eurozone's second power and world's top tourism destination.
They want to prove enough force to make French president reconsider his reform of the railway sector that targets to liberalize rail passenger services and impose new rules of recruitment for "a more efficient and unified" rail operator.
Besides, it proposed to scrap preferential terms of rail workers, including retirement on full pension at 52, a decade earlier than other French employees.
On May 2017, Macron was elected on a reformist project to modernize eurozone's second leading power. Then, France's rising political star vowed to serve the country well and bring change.
Months later, he saw his approval rating tumbling and was dogged by public discontent that triggered street protests and strikes.
Locking horns with trade unions over state rail company's reform would be a risky challenge for the 40-year-old former investment bank, according to Luc Rouban, political scientist at Sciences Po's Political Research Center (CEVIPOF).
"Macron begins an important battle that will be a keystone of his five-year term. He plays his credibility as a reformer," Rouban told Xinhua.
"If he retreated and was forced to announce a reform over several years, he would create the feeling that he would no longer benefit from the election's dynamism and his room for maneuver would be much narrower," he said.
"His Jupiterian side would be much less asserted and it would be for him a very bad political coup," he added.
