The 53rd congress of the CGT opens on Monday, March 27 in Clermont-Ferrand, it will last five days and will mark the end of the 8-year reign of Philippe Martínez at the head of the head office.
Ubiquitous on the streets and on our screens since the start of the union battle against the pension reform, the head of the CGT will soon be relegated to the background by his replacement. Who will he be? Or rather, who will she be? Because for the first time, the CGT could be led by a woman.
Marie Buisson doubled over by the boss
In the CGT everything is very framed and the rule is that you don’t apply yourself.
Thus, Marie Buisson did not announce her intention to replace Philippe Martínez, but rather the opposite occurred when the current leader supported her candidacy last year, a candidacy subsequently approved by the CGT national leadership.
Who is Marie Buisson? Born in 1968, she struggled through “precarious” jobs in her youth before running to compete to become a vocational high school teacher and simultaneously enter the CGT in the early 2000s. She heads the small Federation of Education , Research and Culture. (Ferc) since 2017.
An environmentalist, he deals with environmental issues and represents the CGT within the “Nunca más eso” collective that, since 2020, has brought together associations and unions with the aim of encouraging the Government to respond to the “socio-environmental emergency” against France and the world.
His environmental charges would not pack, among others, the energy branch of the CGT while his “discretion”, for some, does not go unnoticed either.
For wavering Cégétistes, there is an alternative: Céline Verzeletti. Several federations are considering applying for it.
Céline Verzeletti, the unofficial candidate
“The name of Céline Verzeletti was proposed during our meetings. It seems to meet the conditions for a broad agreement, a meeting of all the CGT organizations and the possibility of a collective work within “a solid Confederal Bureau and an enlarged Confederal Executive Commission , built collectively”, can be read in the “discussion record” of a meeting that took place on March 1 between different federations according to AFP.
At 54, Céline Verzeletti, who worked as a prison guard and whose father, a railway worker, was also a CGT militant, is today co-general secretary of the Federal Union of State Trade Unions (UFSE) and a member of the CGT Confederation.
If she has not officially applied for the head of the plant, she recently admitted to the AEF media that “the organizations think that it would allow a better meeting” than Marie Buisson. She carefully avoids expressing her own will and proposes, instead, that of certain CGT federations.
Olivier Mateu, the impossible candidacy?
At 48, Olivier Mateu even claims to want to succeed Philippe Martínez at the head of the union. Although his candidacy a priori does not conform to the statutes. And to destroy the argument that is emerging internally in favor of a female candidacy: “A woman, yes, but she needs content.”
Bigmouth assumed, Olivier Mateu is the holder of a hard line, of a CGT that “does not apologize”, as when he complains about the fuel shortage in his department of Bouches-du-Rhône, to block the pension reform. Or when he repeats that he does not support “neither Putin nor Zelensky”.
Departmental secretary of CGT 13, this forester by profession rejects a “tied” trade unionism: “If you want us to bring young people, women, men, you have to find a CGT on the offensive, a CGT that assumes itself, that does not apologize when it appears on television, it closes down on their demands”, Olivier Mateu explained to AFP, during the seventh day of mobilization against retirement at 64 years of age.
If the candidates supported by the incumbent leader are considered favorites, could internal tensions and disputes change the situation?
Source: BFM TV
