Pension reform: is mediation possible? – France

Failing to shake Emmanuel Macron, would the inter-union have succeeded in cracking the presidential majority on the pension reform? It is too early to tell. But the request for mediation, made this Tuesday morning by the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, has at least caused a little hesitation. The government had just, through the voice of Olivier Véran, closed the door to such a solution, when the leader of the MoDem deputies, Jean-Paul Mattei, took the floor to express a more nuanced point of view: “C It’s good to have one or two people to try to find the dialogue and have a certain distance, ”he argued, during a press briefing at the National Assembly. “A mediator does not interfere in the background, he is there to find the binder and manage to talk to each other, that is what is important. We need someone who is not directly involved in the reform, insisted this close friend of François Bayrou.

“We push for dialogue”

A position taken by Jimmy Pahun, MoDem deputy for Morbihan: “We are a pillar of the majority. We push for dialogue. We have always wanted to work with reformist unions. The country cannot remain stuck like this. If this move should not be overinterpreted, Jean-Paul Mattei having specified, in the afternoon, that there was “no question of putting the reform on hold”, it is a new indicator of the debates which agitate the presidential camp.

At Horizons, the party of former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, several voices were also heard in favor of Laurent Berger’s mediation proposal. “We must seize the outstretched hand, this crisis can only be resolved through dialogue with union representatives”, tweeted the mayor of Ploemeur (56), Ronan Loas, referent of the Horizons party for Brittany.

A position shared by Yannick Favennec, Horizons deputy for Mayenne (who had expressed his intention to vote against the pension reform, before the government drew 49.3). “It is high time to hear the street and respond favorably to the request for mediation,” he said.

“When a hand is extended, we take it”

Beyond the majority, the message sent by the boss of the CFDT, was welcomed by several regional presidents. Including Xavier Bertrand, on the right, who believes that “Laurent Berger’s proposal is an opportunity to be seized to collectively find a way out: it is the very spirit of our social democracy”. And Loïg Chesnais-Girard, on the left, who also “calls on the government to take the path of mediation”. “When a hand is extended, we take it,” insists the president of the Brittany region.

At the end of a day of mobilization during which “more than two million” people demonstrated in France according to the CGT, 740,000 according to the Interior, all the members of the intersyndicale finally received a invitation for “an interview” with Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Berger wants to go, but his comrades from Solidaires and the CFE-CGC intend to discuss it first in the inter-union.