by Caroline Pailliez
PARIS (Reuters) – Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Tuesday launched a final series of consultations with social partners and right-wing executives before finalizing the highly sensitive pension reform, which provides for the postponement of the legal retirement age. departure.
This reform, which aims to rebalance the finances of the pension system over the long term by extending working hours, is to be unveiled on Tuesday 10 January.
It will then be presented to the Council of Ministers on January 23 and then examined in the National Assembly in early February for entry into force before “the end of this summer”, said Elisabeth Borne in an interview on franceinfo.
A week before the deadline, the most sensitive issues have not yet been completely settled, assured the Prime Minister, recalling that “discussions continue”.
For the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger, the first to be received by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, this final meeting will not have made it possible to obtain “clarifications” nor “arbitrations”, but will have given him the opportunity to repeat his red lines.
“If there is a postponement of the legal retirement age which is announced at 65 or 64, the CFDT will do what we have been saying from the start, that is to say: we will oppose this reform, in particular by calling on employees to mobilize”, he declared after the meeting.
Same tone on the side of the CFE-CGC. In the event of a united movement against the reform, “we will be in it”, said its president François Hommeril.
COURTED REPUBLICANS
In addition to the representatives of employers’ organizations and trade unions, received one by one Tuesday and Wednesday at Matignon, Elisabeth Borne will meet with leaders of the majority, including the president of the MoDem, François Bayrou.
Telephone exchanges are also planned with the newly elected president of the Les Républicains (LR) party, Eric Ciotti, the president of the LR group in the National Assembly, Olivier Marleix, and his colleague in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, let the entourage know. of the Prime Minister.
The hoped-for support of the Senate, mainly on the right, and of the sixty LR deputies could indeed help the government to pass its reform rejected by the left and the unions, which promise a unitary mobilization of scale.
Elisabeth Borne could also meet with members of the centrist group Libertés, Indépendants, Outre-mer et Territoires (Liot), which has around twenty deputies in the National Assembly.
“The Prime Minister wants to go to the end of things, she remains determined to carry out this reform with the concern that things are clear and are said,” says a member of her entourage.
In any case, the last arbitrations will be taken at the end of the week with the President of the Republic, we specify at Matignon.
65-YEAR-OLDS, NOT A “TOTEM”
For the time being, the measure that crystallizes the opposition, the hypothesis of a postponement of the legal retirement age from 62 to 65 by 2031, Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise, is still on the table. Table. But it is not “a totem”, assured the Prime Minister on franceinfo.
“There are other solutions that can also make it possible to achieve the balance of our pension system by 2030. On all these subjects, we continue to discuss”, she added.
The Republicans have not yet posted a common position on this sensitive issue, which divides internally.
The senatorial majority wants a postponement of the legal age to 64, accompanied by an acceleration of the 2014 reform called “Touraine” which provides for an increase in the contribution period to 43 years. Olivier Marleix prefers a postponement to 63 by the end of the five-year term.
The executive is also trying to get closer to the CFDT. The chairman of the National Assembly’s Law Commission, Sacha Houlié, close to Emmanuel Macron, is due to meet the general secretary of the Laurent Berger central office on Wednesday afternoon, according to the trade unionist’s agenda.
Elisabeth Borne has already made a gesture towards the unions on Tuesday by announcing the abolition of a much criticized draft decree which reduced the duration of unemployment benefits by 40% if the unemployment rate fell below 6. %.
“It is the illustration that it was DIY, (…) it is the illustration that we can make them go back”, commented Laurent Berger.
The trade unions, which intend to form a common front on this file, have agreed to meet at the end of the day on January 10, just after the official presentation of the reform, to announce the dates of possible mobilizations.
La France insoumise has already promised to be there for the demonstrations, starting with that of January 21, at the call of youth organizations.
(Written by Blandine Hénault and Caroline Pailliez, with Elizabeth Pineau, edited by Kate Entringer and Sophie Louet)