Winter 1995. Olivier Dussopt is 17 years old. He is a communist. Finally, he thinks he is – a few books by Karl Marx served as his express training. What could be more natural for this son of workers from Annonay, a small town in the north of the Ardèche, where his parents alternate unemployment and precarious jobs? When the Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, plans to administer a rigorous cure to the social protection system by planing in particular the special pension schemes, the high school student goes out into the street of his town alongside the demonstrators to protest.
Fall 2007. Olivier Dussopt is 29 years old. He is a socialist. The young man has been the youngest member of the National Assembly since June. It spawns with the left wing of the PS, led by Benoît Hamon. When the President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, plans to postpone the retirement age to 62, the deputy protests and signs a column in The echoes to affirm that “guarantee the right to a correct retirement at 60 years seems obvious”.
Winter 2022. Olivier Dussopt is 44 years old. He is a macronist. After having held the positions of Secretary of State for the Public Service and Minister Delegate for Public Accounts in the previous five-year term, he has been in charge, since May, of the Ministry of Labor, rue de Grenelle. Where his former mentor, Martine Aubry, introduced 35 hours and universal health coverage – two revolutions beneficial to his own family, he often says. When Emmanuel Macron offered to carry the pension reform promised during his presidential campaign, he did not hesitate.
Reached the age of political reason
On January 10, Olivier Dussopt will be alongside the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to present this government project. Will they announce a postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 or 65? An extension of the contribution period? The two ? Certainly the slash should be accompanied by one or more carrots, on the revaluation of minimum pensions or on better consideration of long careers and hardship. But it’s a safe bet that this turn of the screw would have led, yesterday, the same Olivier Dussopt to take to the streets.
How to explain it? The person concerned recounts having reached the age of political reason, after two terms as mayor of Annonay and five years in government. “Exercising responsibilities leads you to be less radical, to take reality better into account, defends the Minister of Labor. We operate in an environment of constraints. »
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