It looks like a last chance meeting. On the eve of an eleventh day of mobilization against the pension reform, Elisabeth Borne receives union officials, this Wednesday, in Matignon. A return to unprecedented dialogue after three months of tensions and demonstrations against the text.
But the meeting could quickly turn sour, because the unions have warned that they will not compromise on the agenda. If the executive refuses to talk about the 64 years, “we will leave”, warned Laurent Berger. However, within the macronists, some are still betting on the leader of the CFDT for a way out of the crisis. A vain hope?
An essential interlocutor
On the front line since the start of the mobilization, Laurent Berger remains firmly opposed to the decline in the legal age, the flagship measure of the government bill. “What we want to talk about are pensions. Our demand is to return to the 64 years and that the government withdraw or suspend its reform (…) in order to start again on a good basis”, he still assures in an interview withObs, this Monday. At the Elysee as in the government, however, we consider the file closed since the adoption of the text with forceps with article 49.3 of the Constitution. Despite this divergence, some macronists are pushing to reach out to the boss of the first national union (public and private combined), considering him as an essential interlocutor for reforming the country.
Last week, several Macronie heavyweights welcomed his request for “mediation” to “find a way out”. “It’s good to have one or two people to try to find the dialogue and have a certain distance”, underlined the president of the Modem group, Jean-Paul Mattei, during a press point at the Assembly. “Any helping hand must be considered”, also affirmed François Bayrouthe boss of the centrist party.
“Disagreement does not prevent discussion”
But in government, the mediation proposal was flatly swept aside, like that of putting the reform “on hold” for six months. In this multi-band communication game, the macronists insisted at the same time on their desire not to cut ties with the person concerned. “We can record a disagreement, it happens, but that does not prevent us from continuing to discuss on other subjects, there are four years left in office…”, breathes Benjamin Haddad, deputy for Paris.
The executive intends to quickly launch new projects, in particular a new labor bill, to better close the “pensions” chapter which has been poisoning it for months. “The challenge for Elisabeth Borne and the government is to prepare for the future. On the meaning of work, retraining and professional training, on the employment of seniors… There are still a lot of things to build. Seeing each other, talking to each other, keeping a constructive spirit, it’s positive, ”wants to believe the spokesperson for the Renaissance group.
The Constitutional Council as arbiter
Because despite the tensions, even the personal enmity between Laurent Berger and Emmanuel Macron since 2017, the macronist camp does not forget that the boss of the CFDT had been useful to François Hollande during his five-year term, in particular by defending the El Khomri law unlike the CGT or FO. At the end of March, the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, called Laurent Berger to take the temperature. “If the macronists insist with Laurent Berger, it is because they need help to get out of the current crisis. And by its latest proposals, it seems to set the pace of the inter-union by seeking a way out of the conflict, ”assures Stéphane Sirot, historian specializing in trade unionism and social movements.
On the eve of the meeting with the Prime Minister, however, the CFDT seems not to have budged. “We are going to be very clear: we want to talk about work issues but we are still in the retirement sequence, so the file will also be on the table. We are not in the aftermath, but on the eve of a new mobilization, ”warns Yvan Ricordeau, national secretary of the CFDT in charge of pensions. “The opposition to the text remains as strong as ever, so we are still asking for a gesture of openness with a pause in the reform”.
Within the presidential camp, it is hoped that a validation of the text by the Constitutional Council, on April 14, will bring down the pressure. “This decision can change the balance of forces, confirms Stéphane Sirot. Laurent Berger, a very legalistic trade unionist, could then judge that the text has been voted on definitively, and therefore legitimate”.