French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday faced accusations of minimising the problems of unemployment after he told the mother of a jobseeker that her son could easily find work.
In a typically robust exchange during a visit to the southern city of Marseille, the president told the woman her son could pick up to "10 offers" if he walked around the city's historic Vieux Port area which is home to dozens of cafes and eateries.
Macron, 45, a former investment banker, has already had previous controversial exchanges over job seeking, in 2018 telling a young man he just had to "cross the street" to find work and telling another man in May work was just "one metre away".
"What does your son want to work in?" Macron asked the woman during a walkabout in Marseille on Monday after she said her son, 33, could not find work and was in rent arrears.
"It does not matter... anything!" she replied.
Macron told her: "You are not going to persuade me that, if he is really looking for a job in Marseille, and that he is ready to take a job as a waiter, that there is no job as a waiter.
"I promise you: If I take a walk around the Vieux Port tonight with you, I'm sure we will find 10 job offers," he said.
But the new head of the CFDT union, Marylise Leon, warned the president that "things were not as simple as all that".
"What message is the president of the republic sending to people who are employed in cafes and restaurants -- that they just have to knock on the door and get work?" she told BFM TV.
"It denies the skills and the difficulties of the working conditions," she added.
MP for the hard-left France Unbowed party Mathilde Panot said "Macron has become a caricature of Macron".
"Showing such contempt to people, the only unemployed person we hope for in the country is Emmanuel Macron," she said.
Tensions have bubbled in France between Macron's government and the left over his pension reform to raise the retirement age.
Earlier this year, his Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin accused the hard-left of wanting a "society without effort" and seeking the "right to laziness".
The unemployment rate in France currently is at around 7 percent, its lowest level since the early 1980s.
Responding to Macron's challenge, the regional daily La Provence took a stroll around the Vieux Port and said it found no less than 13 job offers in one-and-a-half hours.
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