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Emmanuel Macron campaigned for France’s presidency as a friend of business who would ease tax and regulatory burdens on companies while reconciling the French with wealth creation. Now faced with the biggest crisis of his presidency, he is leaning on French companies to do more to help the low-paid and fill a yawning gap in the public coffers.

After weeks of often violent street protests by demonstrators angry at falling living standards, Mr Macron was forced into a partial and costly retreat this week, offering €10bn of extra spending to France’s poorest groups, including minimum wage increases and extra help for pensioners.

Now he is corralling the private sector to play its part. More than 100 of the country’s business leaders were brought to the Elysée Palace on Wednesday evening to hear Mr Macron’s appeal. The president said that “it is not only an issue for the French state, it’s about French society and its economic model”, according to one chief executive present.

The arm-twisting has already yielded results. Companies including Publicis, Orange, Iliad and Altice have acted on Mr Macron’s suggestion to pay tax-free bonuses to their employees. Oil major Total said it would give €1,500 to all of its employees in France, and on Thursday tyremaker Michelin joined the list, saying it would pay an exceptional bonus to employees with salaries of less than €34,000. French banks agreed not to raise household fees next year. EDF, the largely state-owned energy company, was ordered to freeze prices for the first half of next year.

But the government is piling more pressure on the corporate sector, hinting that companies might have to pay more in tax to help narrow a budget deficit that is set to breach the EU’s 3 per cent limit after Mr Macron’s spending commitments to try to quell the gilets jaunes protests.

Mr Macron has also vowed to tackle tax avoidance, saying on Monday: “The leader of a French company must pay his taxes in France and the big companies that make profits there must pay the tax, it is simple justice.”

Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said on Wednesday: “Under the current circumstances, it is not illegitimate to require a particular effort from larger companies.”

“Business have to play their part,” said an Elysée source. “What the president has in mind is that the current French model doesn’t work, it has to change.”

The government intends to lean on business to keep the deficit as close to 3 per cent as it can by raising an estimated €2.5bn a year. Among measures being considered is a pause in the planned reduction of corporation tax for larger companies.

Mr Macron also wants to send a political message to the gilets jaunes after facing criticism that his reforms so far have been focused on corporate interests and the wealthy.

“If the government demands an extra contribution from the biggest companies, it will be very popular. The French will think it is a measure of justice,” said Nicolas Bouzou, an economist with Asterès.

Since taking office, the president has replaced a wealth tax with a narrower levy on property to encourage entrepreneurs to return to France and invest in the real economy. He has also cut corporation tax and reformed labour markets to facilitate lay-offs. A bill is now in the works to make it easier to run a company.

The president’s hope is that benefits will eventually flow down to French workers. But the sequencing of the reforms has given him a reputation as a “president of the rich”, which has fuelled the gilets jaunes’ grievances.

Events of the past few days suggest Mr Macron is resorting to time-tested techniques of French presidents: browbeating members of the business elite to help.

The chief executive at the Elysée meeting said there was “an understanding that big French companies need to pay specific attention to the provinces, the suburban and rural areas”.

Businesses are also acting out of their own interests. Retailers and restaurants have already paid a heavy price for protests that have hobbled their trade for weeks. The protests will cost the economy 0.1 per cent of growth this year, according to Mr Le Maire. 

A closely watched measure of business activity — the IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index — contracted in November for the first time in two-and-a-half years, data published on Friday showed.

Over the longer term there is still support for a president who continues to pledge reforms that are sought by the corporate sector.

“International investors want him to continue his reforms; right now to do that it is easiest to just go to the biggest companies and ask them for an exceptional contribution,” said Mr Bouzou. “I think it will be understood.”