A prime minister on the front line. While Emmanuel Macron and eleven members of the Government will be in Spain, in Barcelona, to sign a friendship treaty with the Iberian country, Elisabeth Borne will remain in Paris.
She “will be very attentive to what is happening in the country,” her entourage confided to BFMTV on the eve of strikes and demonstrations against the government’s pension reform project on Thursday. The day has everything test for the executive, whose bill appears increasingly unpopular in the eyes of the French.
On Wednesday, an Elabe poll for BFMTV indicated that 66% of them oppose the pension reform, an increase of 7 points in one week. A sign that the communication of power, between determination and pedagogy, is not bearing fruit for the moment.
“The system is in danger”
However, the government continues to deploy to explain the general lines of its project. This Wednesday, the prime minister attended a public meeting in Nogent-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne), organized by Mathieu Lefèvre, a Renaissance deputy for the constituency.
Olivier Dussopt was also present. The Minister of Labor, who also remained in Paris, will be the guest of BFMTV this Thursday night, to try, once again, to defend the pension reform that the executive wants.
During the public meeting, Elisabeth Borne took up the language elements displayed for several weeks by the presidential camp. “We are not doing a pension reform for the fun of it, the system is in danger,” she explained, in statements collected by the parisian. A way of emphasizing the need for this reform.
“We are much more protective”
So, the head of Matignon sought, once again, to do pedagogy. “We have arranged this reform and worked with the unions, with the parliamentary groups, so that it allows us to return to balance, that it be fair and that it really brings progress,” he explained according to a participant who confided to BFMTV.
He also returned to a point of tension: the long races. The left, but also part of the right -although a minority- criticize the devices that would lead the youngest to work more than the necessary 43 annuities.
“Our system is based on two rules: the contribution period and the retirement age. We look very closely at the situation of those who started work early. We are much more protective in the project presented than there is today”, defended Elisabeth Borne. , according to the testimony of another participant in BFMTV.
“All the work that has been done, in consultation with the unions, has precisely made it possible to work on the situation of those who started early,” he further argued. I’m not sure the hundreds of thousands of protesters who will be pounding the pavement this Thursday will hear it with the same ear.
Source: BFM TV
