It is not often that one sees the boss of bosses at the Huma festival. It was even a historic first. The president of Medef travelled to Brétigny-sur-Orges (Essonne) to debate with Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT, during the “social forum”. On the menu: wage increases, energy prices, reindustrialisation…
From the start of the debates, Sophie Binet addressed the thorny issue of employment for older people, negotiations for which between the social partners had failed last spring.
“We need to increase salaries”
There was no shortage of points of disagreement. Patrick Martin insisted on the need to find a lasting solution to finance the pay-as-you-go social protection system. He urged it to be rebalanced “without cutting into the purchasing power of employees and the accounts of companies”. The head of Medef sees an increase in production as the panacea for this problem.
Sophie Binet, on the other hand, has highlighted the exemptions granted to companies. She sees this diversion as “€170 billion in aid to companies”, according to figures from researchers at the Centre for Economic Studies and Research in Lille (on request of the Institute for Economic and Social Research and the CGT).
“They are costing us a lot of money,” he said to applause from the audience. The CGT general secretary also denounced a policy of supply without compensation and an unbalanced distribution of value in favour of capital.
On the issue of wages, Patrick Martin managed to elicit applause from the room. “Yes, wages must be increased,” he argued, while rejecting an increase in the minimum wage to 1,600 euros, as advocated by the New Popular Front. The crowd quickly changed its mind when the leader of leaders called for a review of “our social systems.”
She deplored the “368 euros of wage costs that weigh on the minimum wage”. “We are not talking about burdens here, but about contributions”, replied Sophie Binet. This is when the battle moves into the field of semantics.
Some identical observations
If the solutions differ, the trade unionist and the business leader agreed on some observations. Starting with energy prices. “I am a nuclearist,” declared Patrick Martin, a position also defended by the CGT energy federation. Sophie Binet sees the exit from the European electricity market as a solution to this problem. “When will we agree to do the same as Spain?” she asked.
Another issue of consensus: the need to reindustrialise. “Europe has thrown its doors wide open without having provided itself with industrial champions and this has had a major impact,” lamented Patrick Martin, who believes that “no one is obliged to buy Chinese products”. “On the one hand, it is not true that we can buy Made in France at the level of salaries and, on the other hand, there is hardly any Made in France left,” replied the trade unionist.
Sophie Binet also took offense when she reminded the company manager of the Medef’s position on the New Popular Front programme, which the employers’ association had criticised on an equal footing with that of the RN.
“I have spoken about immigration on two occasions and, beyond that, the real answer is to give hope to this country, an economic dynamic that translates into the rebirth of certain territories,” he defends himself, explaining that he would not have supported this position if the PFN programme had been “social democratic”.
Source: BFM TV
