It’s D-Day for an emblematic reform: the government presents this Tuesday, January 10, its choices for the future of the pension system. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne unveils at 5:30 p.m. this reform wanted by Emmanuel Macron in order to “preserve” the pay-as-you-go pension system.
The government could announce the raising of the legal retirement age to 64, instead of the current 62, gradually from autumn 2023. This measure would be coupled with an acceleration of the extension of the contribution period, which would increase to 43 years before the 2035 horizon set by the Touraine reform of 2014.
The unions are standing up against any increase in the legal age, believing that it would especially affect the most modest, who started working early and already have their quarters at 62 years old. The eight main unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires, FSU) should decide this Tuesday at the end of the afternoon of a first date of strike and demonstration to protest against the reform of the pensions, following a meeting at the Labor Exchange in Paris.
Unprecedented union unity for 12 years
Two dates are mentioned to launch the mobilization: January 19 or 24. “The first date could be the third week of January,” Céline Verzeletti, CGT confederal secretary, told AFP. “The objective is to start as quickly as possible, because we know that the government will want to go very quickly by skipping the necessary debate in Parliament.”
The inter-union has been meeting since June 2022 at regular intervals, anxious to display its unity as the cardinal reform of the President of the Republic approaches. This unit has been unprecedented for 12 years and the mobilization against the reform carried out by Eric Woerth, who had raised this legal age of departure from 60 to 62 years. “I told the Prime Minister that she had achieved a feat, it had been 12 years since all the trade union organizations in this country had united against a reform”, quipped Thursday, January 5 the Secretary General of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, after a meeting with Elisabeth Borne at Matignon.
“If Emmanuel Macron wants to make her his mother of reforms […]for us it will be the mother of battles”, warned the boss of Force Ouvrière, Frédéric Souillot. In the health sector, this time, FO-Santé, the second hospital public service union, called on January 4 to the “unlimited strike” from this Tuesday, January 10, denouncing the “extremely degraded situation” of the sector and the “inaction” of the government.
The CFDT, considered a “reformist” union, has also risen against the pension reform. “It must be clear, even with positive measures on long careers or hardship, we remain opposed to the reform with an age measure. There will be no deal with the CFDT”, warned Laurent Berger on Saturday January 7 in a interview at the Parisian. He hit the nail with of the worldindicating to have “two different conceptions” with Emmanuel Macron, “which have nothing to do with social democracy, the place of trade unionism, the distribution of efforts in our country and aid for the most vulnerable”.
Meetings, demonstrations… The left also intends to mobilize
The executive wants to go fast. He should include his reform in a draft amending budget for Social Security presented to the Council of Ministers on January 23, before his arrival the following week in committee at the National Assembly. Where the left promises him a deluge of amendments.
The leaders of Nupes will lead several meetings, in particular this Tuesday evening in Paris, at the initiative of Reporterre and Fakir, where François Ruffin, Marine Tondelier (Europe Ecologie – Les Verts), Fabien Roussel (Parti French Communist), Mathilde Panot (La France insoumise) and Boris Vallaud (Socialist Party).
LFI has already planned to demonstrate on Saturday January 21. “If there are enough of us in the street, then we can make the government back down,” rebellious MP Clémentine Autain said on Tuesday on BFMTV and RMC. “The number that we will represent in the mobilization, that is the key.”