Emmanuel Macron, the French president, on Thursday unveiled an €8 billion (£7 billion) plan to lift millions out of poverty - and to counteract his image as the “president of the rich”.

"I don't want a plan to help poor people to better live poor. I want them to be given the choice, and the possibility, not to be poor anymore," Mr Macron said in a speech at the Museum of Mankind in Paris.

France spends more on social benefits than any other country in Europe, but 14 percent of the population - nine million people - still live below the poverty line, one third of whom are children.