French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a minimum wage reform on Tuesday and said exemptions should apply to French farmers who have been protesting across the country for more than a week, AFP, Reuters and News.ro reported.

Gabriel Attal presented his “road map and government priorities” on the podium of the National Assembly on Tuesday as tractors blocked the highways to Paris.

He stressed that France would continue to invest in nuclear power and develop reactors, calling nuclear power “French pride.”

“We will continue to build our nuclear network and invest heavily in programs this year,” Attal told the National Assembly.

The French prime minister also said that French farmers who have been protesting across the country for more than a week should be released.

“Our agriculture is our strength and our pride. That is why I solemnly say it here, there is and must be an exception in French agriculture,” he told the National Assembly.

“I understand in the face of the accumulation of standards, decisions that come from above and sometimes fall, we don’t know where (…) Farmers also have doubts and are waiting for answers and solutions.”

Attal also spoke in his general policy speech in the National Assembly about reforming the SMIC system, which targets the minimum wage.

Gabriel Attal says he wants to “answer the concerns” of the middle class, those “French people who (…) just want to be able to live off work”.

“Today, in order to increase an employee’s income by 100 euros in the SMIC (minimum interprofessional wage increase, that is, the minimum wage), the employer must pay 238 euros more. As for the employee, he will lose 39 euros from the activity bonus, CSG (general social contribution) and social contributions will increase to 26 euros, and he will be able to pay income tax,” explained the Prime Minister.

“In short, our system, the fruit of successive well-intentioned reforms over the past decades, has put our economic world in a situation where almost no one is interested in raising the SMIC wage,” Attal continued.

He advocated “modifying a system that for decades has forced us to focus our benefits and exemptions” on the minimum wage.

He also promised to act “decisively” to ensure that professions that continue to receive remuneration below the SMIC “raise those remunerations”, and did not rule out “any measures” to get quick results.

In France, the SMIC is the only salary that is indexed to inflation.