The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has conceded there has been a “clear breakdown in equality” in high-rise suburbs and housing estates on the edge of major cities as he tours France to try to stem the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) anti-government protests.

Macron said the state must “guarantee social justice” and stop people in deprived suburban areas becoming trapped “under a form of social house arrest” as he appeared at a town hall building south of Paris to debate for several hours with mayors and community activists on Monday. But he hinted that further public spending cuts could be made. “We can do better while spending less, if we spend in the right places,” he argued.

Macron’s pro-business presidency has in effect been put on hold for more than two months and his programme to overhaul labour and the welfare state has stalled as he instead grapples to contain gilets jaunes street protests against him.

He is now trying to kickstart his promised “transformation” of France with a two-month national “great debate” involving town-hall meetings across France where citizens can present their views on taxation, democracy, environment and the way France is run.

Macron has deliberately been making high-profile appearances at certain town-hall debates alongside mayors across France, taking the microphone, rolling up his shirtsleeves and sometimes debating for up to six hours at a time. After facing heckling and jeers when he went out at the height of the gilets jaunes crisis in November and December, he is now making carefully organised public appearances at debates, as if back on the election campaign trail.

But the high-rise suburban estates on the outskirts of French cities – which for decades have struggled with unemployment and discrimination – have not featured prominently in the gilets jaunes crisis.

Macron’s appearance on Monday night in Évry-Courcouronnes, 20 miles south of Paris, was aimed at showing he was listening to communities in the French suburbs or banlieues, where many feel he has failed to address their concerns.

Macron met more than 300 elected officials and leaders of community groups from deprived communities. Many expressed their exasperation to the president, warning of the “segregation” and “ghettoisation” of communities.

Philippe Rio, the Communist mayor of Grigny, won applause when he said deprived communities on the outskirts of cities “don’t want charity but justice”. He said social and “territorial apartheid” existed in France and had not been fixed by the state. He said people on housing estates felt that in the eyes of the government they didn’t exist, that the French promise of “liberty, equality, fraternity” was “reserved for those of a certain caste”.

Macron insisted that by coming to local debates with mayors “I hear things I wouldn’t otherwise hear”. He said he had “convictions” but not “all the solutions”, which he now wanted to find collectively. He said if everything he’d done had worked perfectly, France wouldn’t be in this crisis.

To one mayor of a deprived area who beseeched him: “Don’t abandon us!”, Macron replied: “I won’t abandon you, that’s not my temperament.”

Macron’s vast nationwide debate process, which continues until March, is an exercise that has never been attempted before in France. Some political opponents – and gilets jaunes protesters themselves – have questioned whether the government will really listen to citizens’ suggestions.

Macron’s personality has become the focus of gilets jaunes protests, which began as a fuel tax revolt in November and quickly morphed into an angry movement against the president, who is accused of arrogance and favouring the rich with pro-business policies.

Although Macron’s poll ratings have inched up slightly among rightwing voters who approve of measures to crack down on protests, his overall approval ratings remain low – hovering between 25% and 35%. A majority of French people see him as cut off from reality. A recent poll by Elabe found that almost eight in 10 French people thought he was authoritarian.

In the run-up to European elections in May, Macron’s party, La République En Marche, is polling neck and neck with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.