Unions are not giving up. After the announcement of the decision of the Constitutional Council, Emmanuel Macron enacted the pension reform overnight from Friday to Saturday. But the unions intend to continue the fight against the project denounced by the government. The inter-union called on Friday, April 14, for a “massive mobilization” for May 1.
Some unions also want to weigh as much as possible in the wording of the decrees specifying the methods of applying the law, hoping to get some inflection from the executive on specific points in the text.
The implementing decrees “are extremely important”
The government spokesman himself, Olivier Véran, had indicated that “the planned operational implementation of the law”, whose entry into force is scheduled for September, will require “discussions” and “exchanges” with union representatives. “Who says law, says implement decrees, and there are many things that can be discussed in the implementation of this pension bill,” he said.
Laurent Berger knows that the unions can play a card here, even if this does not allow the withdrawal of the reform.
The same story on the Unsa side where we intend to contribute to the drafting of decrees to “obtain the progress of the workers”, affirms Dominique Corona.
The CFE-CGC does not neglect the importance of the decrees either. “Between the law and the decrees, there is a world”, recalls the general secretary of the union of executives, Jean-Philippe Tanghe, promising to do “everything necessary” to “improve” the wording of the text.
Appeal to the Council of State
It remains to be seen how much leeway the unions will actually have. Because if the government says that it wants to consult them about the decrees, “I don’t know what they want us to discuss,” laments Dominique Corona, recalling the intransigence of the executive before the demands of the inter-union since the beginning of the movement against the pension reform.
As they did for the unemployment insurance reform, the unions plan whatever it takes to attack the decrees they consider most problematic before the Council of State.
“We are going to look (the decrees) with the lawyers” and “if we believe there is a legal bias, we will not hesitate” to file appeals before the Council of State, he promises. “It is a possibility offered to us by French law.”
The general secretary of the CFE-CGC believes in any case that the law cannot be applied in September, given the time necessary for the drafting of the decrees and the updating of the pension fund software.
Source: BFM TV
