before the new day of April 6, the unions are invited to Matignon
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Before a new day of mobilization against the pension reform scheduled for April 6, the French unions have an appointment next week with Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne at Matignon. An unprecedented meeting for weeks.
Dialogue, finally? The unions, determined to talk about pensions, are expected next week at Matignon, before a new day of mobilization on Thursday April 6. The Constitutional Council must decide on the reform on April 14.
The day after a 10e day of action less packed and also less chaotic than expected, unions and executive give themselves a little air to ease the tension with the prospect of this unprecedented meeting for weeks, while the conflict in the street has entered its third month. From there to consider a way out of the crisis? There is a long way to go and the intersyndicale has planned an 11e day of action on April 6.
The Constitutional Council will make its decisions on the controversial reform on Friday April 14, “at the end of the day”, he announced on Wednesday. On the constitutionality of the adopted bill and on the admissibility of the request for a referendum of shared initiative (RIP) launched by the left.
>> To read: Demonstrations, Constitutional Council, referendum… What next for the pension reform?
On Tuesday, the Ministry of the Interior counted 740,000 demonstrators in France, including 93,000 in Paris, the CGT “more than 2 million” including 450,000 in the capital.
Before the mobilization of April 6, the unions have an appointment with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday? “The date is clearly looming Wednesday” April 5, replied the number 2 of the CFDT, Marylise Léon, Wednesday evening on the set of BFM TV. “We are expected by the inter-union” and “almost all the organizations have responded favorably”. Matignon has not confirmed the date of April 5, indicating that it has not yet received all the answers.
In particular, there remains uncertainty concerning the CGT, in the middle of a congress and of which we will know on Friday the name of the new secretary general to succeed Philippe Martinez. However within the CGT, voices were raised on Wednesday to say that responding to the invitation of Elisabeth Borne would be “a waste of time”. For Marylise Léon, “the challenge is to seize this outstretched hand” from the executive, because “it was an aberration that neither the Prime Minister, nor the President, nor even the Minister of Labor wished to meet the inter-union”.
“Behind us”
On Wednesday, on France Info, the number one of the CFDT Laurent Berger insisted as the day before on his desire to put the subject of pensions on the table, warning: “If I am told: ‘You cannot talk about it ‘ (…) they will leave the room, or we will leave.” The union official again put forward the mediation proposal, the hypothesis of which had however been swept away by government spokesman Olivier Véran on Tuesday.
The Minister for Relations with Parliament, Franck Riester, and the president of the MoDem, François Bayrou, warned on Wednesday that the question of raising the legal retirement age would not be on the agenda. The postponement from 62 to 64, “this is the heart of the reform on which, from the start, there is no agreement”, declared Franck Riester, wishing that the exchange be organized around “subjects on which we agree”.
“The 64 years are in the text”, added François Bayrou, “we cannot change the line at this point”. “The text, it is behind us”, decided for his part the deputy Renaissance Sylvain Maillard in front of the press.
In public opinion, the mobilization remains mostly approved (63%), according to an Elabe poll for BFMTV published on Wednesday, which shows that the executive is perceived as the main responsible for the social conflict at 62% (+ 9 points since March 10 ).
“Boomerang”
If they do take place, will the reunion between government and unions only stage a dialogue of the deaf? The secretary general of Unsa, Laurent Escure, warned Wednesday on Twitter of the risks of disappointment, with an effect that would be “disastrous” and a day of the 6th which “would take another turn”.
“If M.me Borne only creates a media staging (…), it will (him) come back like a boomerang in the face”, also warned LFI deputy Alexis Corbière. On the right, Aurélien Pradié (LR) also estimated that “if the government accepts the dialogue, it is to really dialogue, not to pretend”.
With AFP
