Tuesday, March 21, this expression on the “crowd without legitimacy”. Wednesday, March 22, this “I regret that no union force has offered a compromise”. In recent days, Emmanuel Macron has done nothing to facilitate a way out of the pension crisis with the CFDT. On the contrary. Immediately after the televised intervention of the Head of State, Laurent Berger sent him on Twitter a virulent: “Denial and lie! The CFDT has a pension reform project. Macron 2019 had understood it, he had taken up our ambition for a universal system (sic).” Faced with this inflexible president, the leader of the CFDT has no choice but to raise his voice. Not really his favorite method, especially when a text has been adopted by Parliament.
The number 1 of the CFDT knows it better than anyone. Starting a social conflict is easy. Getting out is infinitely less so. Since his accession to the head of the union in 2012, Laurent Berger has always taken care to prepare meticulously after the demonstrations. No question of falling back into the trap of 1995 after Nicole Notat’s support for the Juppé reform or that of 2003 and the “acceptable compromise” delivered by François Chérèque for the Fillon reform. Each time, in recent years, he has found satisfying outcomes. Until this damn pension reform of 2023.
This time, before a new day of mobilization, this Thursday, March 23, the tension is still as high and the outcome as uncertain. The doors making it possible to extinguish the challenge while keeping the head held high closed one after the other. No agreement possible – even unspoken – with the government, for lack of significant concessions granted in recent weeks. No possibility of extracting measures through parliament, due to accelerated debate, then 49.3. No, nothing, nothing, this conflict leaves no hold for a way out of the crisis as Laurent Berger likes. For the moment, the government’s firmness condemns it to continue in the field of protest.
A dangerous game
He believed for a moment that the power was going to yield as the public opinion was mainly opposed to the reform. He pleaded for major days of mobilization deemed more effective than renewable strikes which are always unpopular. He counted on the scale of the processions, in particular that of March 7 which reached a peak especially in medium-sized towns, to put pressure on elected officials. He was wrong. Emmanuel Macron and he looked at each other, judged by the media, each claiming its legitimacy – one from the polls last April, the other as the first union in France. Neither of them wanted to talk about the key point again, the starting age at 64. The Head of State has made it a marker and Laurent Berger cannot compromise on this since the congress of his organization last June reaffirmed a clear refusal on this subject.
As the days and weeks go by, he knows the game is all the more dangerous as social anger continues unabated. Nothing says that Emmanuel Macron’s vague promise this Wednesday on TF1 and France 2 of a project on working conditions is enough to appease people’s minds after the government’s use of 49.3 and the rejection of motions of censure. The most protesting unions, particularly the CGT which does not want to lower the pressure as its congress approaches at the end of March, have no interest in it. In this context, Laurent Berger has no choice but to continue to be present in the processions like this Thursday, even if it means being associated with any violence. He also plays with the yellow lines when he asks Emmanuel Macron to withdraw the pension reform or not to enact it when a week earlier he criticized the “democratic vice” of the use of 49.3, yet in respect for the constitution.
A past position of balancing act
Faced with a President of the Republic who does not like intermediate bodies, has Laurent Berger lost his tactical sense? In recent years, the CFDT has always taken care not to openly validate the reforms while claiming to obtain progress for employees. A tacit or partial approval that allowed it to weather the storms without too much damage, avoiding accusations of treachery, while preserving its reputation as a responsible union. In 2016, for example, the confederation welcomed the progress contained in the Labor law (known as the El Khomri law), but refused to give a blank check to the government project. It has however obtained the primacy of social agreements signed within companies, its battle horse for many years.
Another atmosphere, another government majority with the pension reform of 2010 under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy. It is then for Laurent Berger to make forget the crisis which followed the approval of 2003. It appears with Bernard Thibault but without going on the ground of radicality. For its part, the executive, cornered by Raymond Soubie then social adviser at the Elysée, takes the time for discussions, with one hope: to ensure the “benevolent neutrality” of the CFDT. Measures in favor of “long careers” and arduous work are added to satisfy it. Finally, a gift is made to him by enshrining in the law the promise of a national reflection on a systemic reform of pensions, another major demand of the CFDT.
With Emmanuel Macron, none of that. In 2019, the reform presented as systemic by the authorities will be parasitized by the desire to postpone the legal age of departure from 62 to 64, supported by Edouard Philippe. The eruption of the Covid and the first confinement in March 2020 will provide a convenient pretext for abandoning the reform, but will also bury for a long time the idea that we must “change everything for more justice”. This time, no ambiguity, the government claimed a purely parametric reform. And refused to make a significant gesture in the direction of the CFDT, considering that the social partners weigh little against the will of the politician. Things kept getting worse. By refusing to receive the unions as Laurent Berger asked them, the Elysée and Matignon have humiliated a little more a leader who has made his “sense of responsibility” his trademark. By insisting on the number of undeclared demonstrations (1,200 since the activation of 49.3 on Thursday March 16, according to the Ministry of the Interior) and by recalling the unconstitutionality of certain proposals by Laurent Berger, the executive resolutely sends him back on the side of the opponents.
To get out of this trap, the reformist leader can only count on the Constitutional Council, which remains very uncertain. Or on a final hand extended by Emmanuel Macron, even more uncertain after the pass of arms this Wednesday. To those who dream of a scenario at the CPE in 2006 when Jacques Chirac had decided not to apply a device yet voted, Laurent Berger, who still refuses to promise great evenings more than hypothetical, retorts that “we must stop to gossip about each other”. A way of remembering that in social matters history rarely stutters. And, already, record a possible failure.