After a mobilization that he did not anticipate as massive, the executive remained resolved on Friday to go through with its pension reform, with some marginal adjustments. Government spokesman Olivier Véran said on January 11 that he did not plan “in the idea of a massive mobilization” against this project. Finally, it was challenged Thursday in the street by more than a million (according to the police) or even two million (according to the CGT) of people.
This mobilization was “important”, he acknowledged on Friday like several other ministers, and “we respect it” but “this reform is essential and we must do it”. Not excluding the possibility of “enriching” the text in Parliament, he recalled that the project had already “evolved” after trade union and political consultations. The Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal conceded that the government could “still make progress” on chopped careers and the employment of seniors.
But without touching on the main point disputed by the opponents: the postponement of the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. “It will move on the margins,” admits a majority official. The debate in the Assembly will allow “perhaps to enrich the project but within a given framework”, added Stanislas Guerini, Minister of the Public Service.
“Tensions”
“There is no (…) to pretend that there were no people in the street” but “we cannot go back” on the reform, “we must hold on”, estimated the vice-president of the Renaissance group Sylvain Maillard, while the majority is crossed by “tensions”, allies of Horizons and the MoDem included. The deputies in their constituencies “are between a rock and a hard place” and are “worried in view of the mobilization” on Thursday, reports a Renaissance parliamentary source.
But “these are lost sheep” who will return to the fold, we want to believe within the group. Deputy Gilles Le Gendre admitted to being “eminently aware of the fact that we have not yet succeeded in convincing people of the relevance of this reform” which “cannot be perceived as fair since we are asking everyone to make an effort “, the coordinator of LFI Manuel Bompard seeing in it the admission of an “unfair” reform.
Since Barcelona on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron had said his “determination” to bring the project to fruition, which will be presented to the Council of Ministers on Monday, and which he considers to be “democratically validated” by his election, even if many voters voted for him by rejection of Marine Le Pen. More nuanced, Gabriel Attal, who predicts a second day of mobilization “probably as important” on January 31, did not use the term “validated”.
“I’m not saying there’s a blank check” for the president, who only has a relative majority, he admitted, “I’m just saying there’s no page neither white.
TV debates
On the front line, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne always wanted to “convince”. The ministers concerned, Gabriel Attal, Olivier Dussopt, Stanislas Guerini and Olivier Véran will continue to develop their arguments during public meetings. Televised debates are also in the pipeline. BFMTV announced the holding of a game on Tuesday evening between Olivier Véran, the boss of RN Jordan Bardella, and the leader of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot.
Gabriel Attal also indicated that the executive was going to “continue to exchange with the trade unions” but no appointment seemed to be in preparation so far, according to an adviser to the executive. If the unions won the first battle, they have not yet won the war, underlines the presidential camp.
“The real question will relate to the next (mobilizations). Is it renewed, does it aggregate?”, Asks a member of the majority, pointing to the “competition” between unions and politicians, then that LFI organizes its own march on Saturday, and the “maximum rate of annoyance of the French” because that’s what “counts”. “If this holds, it will be complicated to maintain the reform as it is. If the phenomenon (mobilization) erodes, it will wear out” as in 2010, believes political scientist Pascal Perrineau.