PARIS, Sept 18 (Reuters) – CFDT Secretary General Laurent Berger laid down his conditions on Sunday for a pension reform in France, saying in particular his “frontal opposition” to the inclusion of a measure in the next Social Security Finance Bill (PLFSS).
Questioned this week on France 2 on this ruptive file, the Minister of Labour, Full Employment and Integration, Olivier Dussopt, did not exclude “any hypothesis”, including that of an age measurement via an amendment in the PLFSS 2023 to be debated in Parliament this fall.
“If the government decides to go through the PLFSS to reform pensions, which would not be a reform but a budgetary adjustment, the CFDT will be up in arms and in opposition”, said Laurent Berger on the program “Political Questions” France Inter -Franceinfo-Le Monde.
The union leader put in the balance the participation of the CFDT in the National Council for Refoundation (CNR), a deliberative body recently set up by Emmanuel Macron.
“If there is an amendment to the PLFSS on pensions, the CFDT de facto leaves the CNR and the discussions,” he warned. “Yes we will go out, because there will be disloyalty.”
Laurent Berger, however, said he was open to discussion for the sake of “social justice”, referring in particular to the issues of hardship and employment of seniors.
“Don’t make me pass for someone who wouldn’t want to reform the pension system”, which is “unfair in many ways”, he said, designating Elisabeth Borne as his privileged interlocutor on this file. .
“The Prime Minister is she who governs, it is not the President of the Republic”, he underlined, while Emmanuel Macron wants a pension reform applicable from the summer of 2023.
Franois Bayrou against a “forced passage” on pensions (Reportage Elizabeth Pineau)