as Prime minister. Mitterrand stressed the importance of European integration and advocated the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on European economic and political union, which France's electorate narrowly approved in September 1992. The conservative President Jacques Chirac assumed office May 17, 1995, after a campaign focused on the need to combat France's stubbornly high unemployment rate. The center of domestic attention soon shifted, however, to the economic reform and belt-tightening measures required for France to meet the criteria for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) laid out by the Maastricht Treaty. In late 1995, France experienced its greatest labor unrest in at least a decade, as employees protested government cutbacks. In evaluating Chirac's presidency in 2015, the British magazine The Economist stated: In his term, unemployment averaged 10 percent, debt mounted, the French said no to Europe, and the suburban banlieues rioted....It was on his watch that France's competitive position sharply declined. His popularity sank to 16 percent....[But today] Jacques Chirac has emerged as an improbable icon of retro taste and a figure of public affection. History 2000 to present Macron presidency Macron formally became president on 14 May 2017. In the 2017 legislative election, Macron's party La République en marche and its Democratic Movement allies secured a comfortable majority, winning 350 seats out of 577. After The Republicans emerged as the winners of the Senate elections, government spokesman Christophe Castaner stated the elections were a "failure" for his party. In his first few months as president, Macron pressed for enactment of package of reforms on public ethics, labor laws, taxes, and law enforcement agency powers. Corruption In response to Penelopegate, the National Assembly passed a part of Macron's proposed law to stop mass corruption in French politics by July 2017, banning elected representatives from hiring family members. Meanwhile, the second part of the law scrapping a constituency fund was scheduled for voting after Senate objections. Macron's plan to give his wife an official role within government came under fire with criticisms ranging from it being undemocratic to what critics perceive as a contradiction to his fight against nepotism. Following an online petition of nearly 290,000 signatures on change.org Macron abandoned the plan. On 9 August, the National Assembly adopted the bill on public ethics, a key theme of Macron's campaign, after debates on the scrapping the constituency funds. Labour policy and unions Macron aims to shift union–management relations away from