The unions received this Monday with caution or even mistrust the announcement by President Emmanuel Macron of the postponement to January 10 of the presentation of the pension reform, initially scheduled for Thursday. The postponement should give time to the social partners and the new leaders of LR and EELV to “discuss” with the Executive about this project, said the Head of State.
The text, which must then be presented to the Council of Ministers on January 18 or 25, should provide for a postponement of the retirement age to 64 or 65 years, a measure contested by the unions in a rare unanimous front.
The CFDT indicates in a press release to “take note” of the postponement, which “will allow” it to “continue complying with its priority demands for more social justice”, in particular “a better system with a long career” and “a penury account that integrates the three ergonomic criteria to give the right to early departures”. But the first French union “reiterates its opposition to any postponement of the retirement age limit”, a “brutal” measure that would penalize the most modest employees first.
“The CFDT will be faithful to itself (…) it is against December 15, it will be against January 10,” insisted its secretary general, Laurent Berger, at the exit of the plenary session of the National Council for Refoundation in the Elysee .
“feverishness”
Through the voice of its confederal secretary Céline Verzeletti, the CGT considered that the postponement showed “the fever of the government, which fears a strong mobilization.” Same point of view with François Hommeril, president of the CFE-CGC, for whom “the executive is very concerned – and he is right – about what the January mobilization will be like”. As the President of the Republic and his government “are in close communication, perhaps they feared” that “it would have a bad effect to announce (the reform) the day after a possible qualification to the World Cup final” of soccer, pointed out Michel Beaugas (FO).
Pascale Coton (CFTC) sees “something good” in this postponement, because “the agenda was moving too fast”. She hopes that the Government will take advantage of this extra time to “retake” the union proposals “on small pensions, long careers”, and that it has not been decided “only so that the French have a good holiday and happy holidays”. “If it is to listen to the unions that make proposals other than the postponement of the age of majority, it is good news,” added Dominique Corona (Unsa). “But if it’s just to save time…”
Will the unions stop calling this week for a first day of action in January? On the CGT side, “we know that mobilizations will be needed. We think that, in any case, we will have to be ready for the first half of January,” says Céline Verzeletti. “It doesn’t change anything for us in terms of mobilization: we had decided to wait until January and there will be a mobilization in January,” says Michel Beaugas (FO).
Source: BFM TV
