Laurent Berger is everywhere. When he’s not pounding the pavement against pension reform, he makes media appearances and tweets, certainly in between meetings to organize the rest of the movement. A strong man of the moment, in case it were necessary to mention just one of them, he has been in charge of the first union in France, the CFDT, for more than ten years.
Last Sunday on the program Le Grand Jury he assumed that he wanted to harden the movement and put France on hold on March 7, this day of post-school vacation mobilization that should be very popular. The union leader, like his organization, has a reputation for being more moderate than some of his colleagues and is careful not to anger public opinion, to which he attaches great importance. He also recalled, during the program jointly organized by LCI, RTL and Le Figaro, that “opinion is important” and that “there was no borderline, there was no blockade.”
Being up front and visible during this important moment in the union fight, putting pressure on the government without offending the French: a strategy that seems to be working for him, Laurent Berger has been in the spotlight since the beginning of the year. and also, it seems, in the papers of a certain opposition.
A man loved by politicians?
“He is someone with whom we can discuss, who is very frank, very direct. […] All the contacts I have had with him have always been extremely positive”, insisted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the Insoumis, last week at the BFMTV microphone.
If the left opposition is full of praise, the government can no longer try to pocket it. Elisabeth Borne, who lacks empathy according to the trade unionist, still decided to call him and some of his colleagues recently, after several weeks without communicating despite the mobilizations in the street that brought together more than a million people on several occasions , according to police counts. .
It is that perhaps there is nothing to negotiate. The Government is inflexible in the face of lowering the retirement age, while the CFDT also proclaims with the same firmness its opposition to article 7 of the text.
Irreconcilable a priori positions. And once the reform has passed the parliamentary course -if nothing prevents it- many predict that the CFDT will respect the democratic vote and put an end to its social movement. Is the government counting on this to avoid seeking a compromise?
Appreciated or despised by politicians, Laurent Berger has a lot of work behind him in any case.
a prowling man
Son of a worker, elected plant manager in 2012, he was re-elected in 2014, 2018 and 2022, Laurent Berger can boast of having met all the requirements, who also chairs, since May 2019, the unions of the European Confederation. . A permanent member of the CFDT since 1996, his rise in the organizational chart will have been gradual. A life at the service of a cause. And long-standing convictions. Between 1992 and 1994, Laurent Berger was general secretary of the Juventud Obrera Cristiana.
The CFDT, which took the reins at 44, is often described as a reformist union, in opposition to organizations like the CGT, which are said to be protesting. Therefore, more inclined to social dialogue and less radical in the expression of its demands, the organization also supported, in 2014, the Touraine pension reform that provided for a gradual increase in the contribution period.
By leading the drumbeat of this battle against a pension reform that he considers above all unfair, Laurent Berger also allows the CFDT to attract new members. At the end of 2021, the first union for private sector employees had some 610,000 members. And in recent weeks, memberships have multiplied. Almost 3,000 a week, by the chef’s own admission. What to inflate the finances of the only union to be able to guarantee real financial support to its members by depriving themselves of days of salary to lead the fight, thanks to a “strike fund” without equivalent… in France.
Source: BFM TV
