While meeting with dozens of the world's most influential executives, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to continue with his plans to reform the French economy amid continued resistance from the Yellow Vest movement, according to Reuters.
Macron hosted executives from Microsoft, Snapchat, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and more for a pre-Davos dinner at Versailles.
Marcon started his address on Monday night to invoke King Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette to claim: “If they met such an end, it is because they had given up on reforming."
Macron's office also said foreign companies including Microport, Mars, Procter & Gamble, Cisco and others were planning to announce investments in France worth more than 600 million euros.
Macron noted Microport was going to invest 350 million euros over the next five years to expand a Research & Development center.
Mars was also going to invest 120 million euros in several sites across the country.
Procter & Gamble was making a 50 million euro investment for a new detergent production line in Amiens.
A new hyperloop test line was also being created by Transpod worth 20 million euros.
Macron used the exclusive dinner to reassure the investors of France's future and his firm commitment to reform, even though video and images of the protesters attacking popular monuments in Paris, boutiques, and riot police officers were seen around the world.
“There are questions about the protests’ magnitude, about the violence, because these images are shocking for foreigners,” a source at Macron’s office said before the summit.
“Last year, the summit was in a totally different dynamic, it was all about ‘France is back’. Here we’re in a tougher part of the mandate domestically and that requires more explanations,” the source noted to Reuters.
Macron said the populist protest movement was part of a larger picture since middle-class people around the world were growing anxious over globalization, pointing to the example of Brexit in the United Kingdom and the far-right populist parties rising in Italy and Germany.
“The solution to the crisis is not to roll back what we have done in the past 18 months,” he said.
Macron faced fierce competition from the far-right Marine Le Pen during his May 2017 presidential election but was able to win out on a campaign that promises job creation and developing a more skilled labor force across France while cutting regulations.
The moderate president began his tenure with a reform blitz, which inspired a number of investors but stoked tensions between low-wage employees, who felt Macron was favoring large businesses.
The growing unrest has destabilized Macron's reform campaign and cost his government a number of concessions.
Macron's office said he was not attending the World Economic Forum in the ski resort of Davos to focus on dealing with the yellow vest uprising.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody