French President Emmanuel Macron | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images Macron’s response to Yellow Jackets French president suggests an EU carbon tax and reducing the number of countries in Schengen.

PARIS — Emmanuel Macron launched what he called "a new act of [the French] Republic" on Thursday evening, in a bid to turn the page on five months of Yellow Jacket protests.

The French president announced a range of measures, including tax cuts and public sector reform, and was at pains to make clear he had heard the concerns of citizens.

"I want the French to know, I felt it in my flesh what they were saying and expressing ... This period has changed me," Macron told more than 200 journalists in what was his first press conference for reporters in France since becoming president in 2017.

He spoke for more than two hours, seated behind a desk in the Elysée Palace's ornate Hall of Festivities, eschewing his usual combative tone toward journalists and appearing at times contemplative, striking poses and looking up while pondering responses during the Q&A session that followed his speech.

Despite his conciliatory tone, he rejected some of the major demands of protesters, including reinstating a tax on the wealthy, and making the democratic process more representative by holding citizen-led referendums.

In his speech, which was originally supposed to be held on the day of the fire that devastated the Notre Dame cathedral, Macron said he wants to see better public services outside major cities, both in terms of the number of civil servants and infrastructure, and suggested reforming how long the French work. He also suggested abolishing the ENA, an ultra-exclusive civil service training university that he attended, in a move aimed at quelling public anger toward elites.

While Macron has concentrated power at the Elysée since he took office, he indicated, as further proof of his transformation, that he would be delegating more responsibilities to the prime minister and government, starting with tasking them with putting flesh on the bones of the plans he vaguely laid out in this speech.

A month before the European Parliament election, Europe played a prominent role in his address. Macron seemed to punt the responsibility for tackling climate change over to the EU, proposing an EU carbon tax, a carbon price floor and “more ambitious green finance” policy at the EU level.

“The climate has to be at the heart of the national and the European project,” he said.

The Yellow Jacket protest movement, which has often led to violence, was largely spurred by the introduction of a national carbon tax, which Macron revoked a month into the protests.

He also expanded on his previous suggestion of “overhauling” Schengen, suggesting that countries that either refuse to take in refugees or that don’t enforce border controls shouldn’t be part of the border-free zone.

“On the European level, we decided to have common borders … it’s not working anymore,” he said. “Responsibility comes with solidarity. This is the basis upon which Schengen should be overhauled, even if it means having fewer states within Schengen.”

Macron also pushed back on the notion that he had failed to get much support for his plans to overhaul the EU, because of disagreements with Germany.

He said France "doesn't shy away from having disagreements and fruitful confrontations" that help reach compromises, although he said "Germany is at the end of a growth cycle that benefited from imbalances in the eurozone." But he also said that France "is never afraid of speaking its voice even when it is in the minority," such as on opposing EU trade negotiations with the U.S. because President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Macron's press conference was also an opportunity for him to renew his European Parliament election push, especially by attempting to appeal to right-wing voters. Twice, he made statements on migration and Islam that had striking similarities with hard-line, right-wing positions.

"In order to take in people, one has to have a home, which means borders,” he said, echoing similar statements by two right-wing MEP candidates recently.

Macron also said: “When we speak about secularism … we speak of people who in the name of a religion pursue a political project, that of a political Islam that wants to secede from our republic.”