How to turn the big debate into reality

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and his team spent Monday trying to propose concrete measures to improve life in France, following the reform plans presented by President Emmanuel Macron last week.

The president's proposals were based on complaints and suggestions from the great national debate – two months of talks organized in the form of a listening exercise after the eruption of yellow vest events.

So what could change?
The finance ministry will have to figure out how to fill a $ 5 billion shortfall after Macron announced cuts in income tax, but no real cuts in public spending.

It is likely that additional funds will be found by ending some tax breaks for businesses.

A clear message that emerged from the protests against the yellow vest and the big debate was the situation of many single-parent families.

Thousands of mothers in low-paying jobs described their difficulties in making ends meet and raising their children alone.

Macron has asked his government to tackle their plight and suggested that absent parents who do not pay child support for their children's education could be taxed by the courts.

During the great debate, countless angry remarks were made before a government of "technocrats", totally unaware of how ordinary people live outside the capital and major cities of the country.

In order to respond to this complaint, local authorities will likely be given greater powers to collect taxes and more responsibility for housing, transportation and others.

Yellow vests, debaters are they happy?
Political scientist Luc Rouban, of Sciences Po University in Paris, reviewed the statistics regarding the big debate and noted that those who took part in the exercise were in general not the same as those who participated in the Yellow Vest event.

The debates were, he said, more educated than the average citizen and much older, with a very high turnout of over 50s and retirees.

Yellow jackets often had relatively low-paying jobs and little income security.

Many have rejected the Great Debate from the beginning, claiming it was a public relations trick to portray Macron as an auditor.

Rouban notes that the Yellow Vest movement is above all a protest against representative democracy and a demand for a more direct democracy. The Yellow Vests have already condemned Macron's decision, announced Thursday, to no longer have referendums, except in a few cases.

They say that they will continue to demonstrate and expect a strong participation in the International Workers Day, May 1, which is a holiday in France.