Demonstration against pension reform, January 20, 2023 in Lyon (AFP/Archives/OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE)
Months of battle, a united union front and a weakened executive: the pension reform adopted by force and promulgated on April 15, marked the year 2023. But the subject is far from being closed, with the thorny issue in ambush question of senior employment.
As soon as the project aimed at raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 was presented on January 10, the unions announced a day of action against this reform which they described as “brutal”, the result of a commitment to Emmanuel Macron’s campaign after the failure of a first attempt.
Started on January 19, the mobilization movement – judged “historic” by the participants – is punctuated by 14 days at the call of the eight main unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires, FSU) . Several brought together more than a million participants according to the authorities.
The spread of the movement throughout France, with processions in small or medium-sized towns unaccustomed to mobilizing, is surprising.
A demonstrator who participated in all the days of action in Paris will have traveled some 60 kilometers, according to AFP calculations.
At the same time, the text is being examined in Parliament in a heated atmosphere, with Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt shouting furiously: “No one has cracked!”.
Ultimately, the executive chose a forceful passage on March 16 with adoption without a vote in the Assembly with 49.3. On April 14, the Constitutional Council validated most of the reform, promulgated the next day.
On Sunday, Olivier Dussopt considered that this reform “was necessary”. “And it remains necessary, for social cohesion, for solidarity. If we had not made this reform, we were going straight into the wall,” he said in Political Questions (France inter/Le Monde/France Télévisions ).
– “Unfinished Symphony” –
“The strategy of the demonstration is less profitable than the strike”, notes eight months later the political scientist Dominique Andolfatto, specialist in trade unionism. The government remained “straight in its boots”.
“Casserolade” against President Emmanuel Macron and pension reform, April 17, 2023 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Geoffroy Van der Hasselt)
“What we lacked in this mobilization is the capacity to extend the strikes,” said the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, in June. The strikes have in fact remained confined to certain sectors, despite a call to put “France at a standstill” on March 7.
The executive’s travels continued to be disrupted by “pans” in the spring. But shortly after a final day of action, on June 6, the unions admitted having failed.
“We could do better (…), show a little more imagination,” regrets an LFI manager today.
The unions nevertheless see reasons to rejoice in other “conquered” results: they have brought back to them a fringe of employees alienated from the organizations, learned to work better together and “won the battle of opinion”.
But “it’s an unfinished symphony”, and it is not certain that it is “all that beneficial for the unions”, believes Dominique Andolfatto.
– Seniors –
François Hommeril (CFE-CGC) fears the longer-term political consequences: “In a certain way, having forced the power to this constitutional and democratic + attack + (49.3: editor’s note), it is a little worrying because it opened a breach into which, after Macron, many could rush.”
An effigy representing Justice, created by the Théâtre du Soleil, during a demonstration against pension reform, February 16, 2023 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Emmanuel DUNAND)
As for the path of a shared initiative referendum (RIP), still hoped for on the union side, it is “quite illusory”, judges Mr. Andolfatto: “We cannot reheat something which did not work last year former”.
Direct consequence of the reform which has been gradually applied since September: seniors (like others) will have to work two more years, at the risk, if employers do not keep them, of compromising the objective of an unemployment rate at 5% in 2027 set by Emmanuel Macron.
The executive therefore required the social partners to take the reform into account, particularly with the increase in the age from which seniors benefit from longer periods of compensation.
“One of the objectives of pension reform” is that “seniors remain in employment”, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne recently underlined, saying she was counting “on the social partners to find new and ambitious solutions” during the negotiations which must take place. complete in March.
But even if all the conditions are met, the question of deficits is not resolved according to the Pension Orientation Council (COR), because despite the reform, after 2024, the deficit would fluctuate until 2030 between 5 and 8 billion per year. With the risk of having to put the work back on the job…
© 2023 AFP
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