The president of the MoDem, François Bayrou, said on Sunday that he was “favorable” to the pension reform being the subject of a referendum, which Emmanuel Macron had said he considered, without formally promising it, during the presidential campaign. . About this flagship reform of candidate Macron’s program, François Bayrou said he was “favorable” to it during the program Sunday in politics on France 3, recalling that he had “proposed it in the presidential election of 2007”, when he himself was a candidate.
“What makes this pension reform totally explosive? “Questioned this close friend of the head of state. “I believe that Michel Rocard said: ‘it’s a reform that will blow up several governments.’ Why ? Because there is a kind of blockage of the country each time we address this issue”, he argued, believing that “if this blockage is a real threat, then there is a very simple way to lift the blockage, it is to say: “It is the French who will choose”. “I have always defended this idea of the referendum”, he added, recognizing however that “it is not a majority idea”.
A reform “for the French”
The High Commissioner for Planning also considered that “it is a reform not for a government, but for the French people, it is for them that the reform is made and [ce sont eux] who pay: it is legitimate, if we are in a deadlock situation, to give them the choice”.
“And I have no doubt that this choice will go in the direction of balance,” he said.
During the campaign, at the beginning of April, Emmanuel Macron had estimated that the referendums “in the context of Article 11” were an instrument that could be “used”, including for a pension reform, but that he wanted to “favor first of all a broad political consultation and with the social partners on this subject”.