French President Emmanuel Macron is announcing a wide array of measures - from testing uniforms in schools to overhauling parental leave - in a bid to reinvigorate a second mandate marred by his unpopularity and contested reforms. One week after appointing France's youngest ever prime minister, Macron, whose margin of manoeuvre is constrained by a lack of absolute majority in parliament, is urging the French to be united to make the country stronger. Macron also said he would ask his government to launch a new batch of liberal reforms to boost the economy, saying the country needed to be encouraged to 'produce more' and 'innovate more'. Five months before European Parliament elections, which opinion polls say the far right is set to win in France, Macron has also promised to do more to help the middle class and access to social welfare. The appointment last week of Gabriel Attal, 34, a rather popular and media-savvy rising star of French politics, already signaled a desire by Macron to move beyond the divisive pension and immigration reforms that triggered protests last year. As Macron seeks to rejuvenate his presidency, FRANCE 24's Tom Burges Watson and Douglas Herbert are joined by Léa Chamboncel, Author, Political Journalist with a Feminist POV and Founder of @PopolMedia and Dr. Andrew Smith, Historian of modern France and Lecturer in Liberal Arts at Queen Mary University of London.
