For the past week, a new portmanteau has entered the political media space. The term “clarification”, which seems to be the only point of agreement between the different political blocs. Thus, from the extreme right to the extreme left via Macronie, some do not pass onto a television set without agitating it. However, the speeches of each camp have rarely seemed so confused, and the political projects so nebulous.
On the question of pension reform in particular, which revealed the first differences between the National Rally (RN) and its new ally, Eric Ciotti. To the question “do you find yourself in the repeal of the pension reform?”, the outgoing deputy from Nice hits the nail on the head: “It is not said that the reform will be repealed”, he evades on France 2. Forgetting that ultimately, it is the will of the strongest that would apply. However, in this Ciotti-RN coalition, it is the RN which has the leadership.
For the RN, a repeal, but not immediately
And Jordan Bardella did not fail to drum it up in the columns of the Parisian this Tuesday, June 18. “It is the RN which leads this coalition […] The pension reform will be repealed” he confirms, unfolding the party’s project in flames: a minimum starting age set at 60 years intended for long careers, these people having started working at the age of 20. For the others, departure would be gradually extended up to age 62 depending on entry into the labor market and each person’s career path.
For the unraveling of the Borne reform, however, we will have to wait a little longer. Because contrary to what several lieutenants of Marine Le Pen had suggested, she will not be put to the guillotine as soon as the National Rally arrives in Matignon. Anxious to establish an image as a good family man, Jordan Bardella hangs the fate of the reform on the verdict of the audit, which he has undertaken to commission from an independent commission made up of “economists”, “magistrates of the Court of Auditors” or even “academics”…
The inconsistencies of Rousseau and Hollande
Are you lost? Wait until you see the hullabaloo on the left of the political spectrum, where several Nobel Prize winners for incoherence also nestle. Aurélien Rousseau for example, candidate for the legislative elections in Yvelines under the banner of the New Popular Front (NFP), who intends to repeal the reform “immediately”. One wonders where the former director of the Regional Health Agency was when the law was adopted. The answer will perhaps surprise more than one: alongside Elisabeth Borne… and not in just any position since Aurélien Rousseau was none other than the Prime Minister’s chief of staff who led the charge, whatever the cost. raising the retirement age to 64 years. He even entered the government as Minister of Health following his departure from Matignon in July 2023.
Which obviously does not bother the various executives of the New Popular Front. Proud of their take on the war, several defended the courage of a man “who left the government because of the immigration law”. A departure at the end of 2023, which was seen as a sign of “a certain political coherence”. Public Square MEP Raphaël Glucksmann particularly praised the “dignity” of the resigning minister. Six months later, the latter therefore joined the left coalition.
“Aurélien Rousseau, ex-director of Borne’s cabinet during the pension reform and ex-minister of health Macron, reappears under the New Popular Front label. All that is missing is Valls and Cahuzac,” the spokesperson jokes on X of Workers’ Struggle, Nathalie Arthaud.
To the surprise of everyone – including his own political family – he too chose to support the coalition hastily patched together on the remains of NUPES. Thus François Hollande will campaign in his constituency of Corrèze on the program of the New Popular Front. And therefore, among other things, on the return of the retirement age to 60…
Curious, if not paradoxical, for a former President of the Republic who had carried out a reform whose objective was to extend the contribution period from 41.5 years to 43 years by 2035… But in the face of “gravity” of the situation – understanding, the peril of the extreme – François Hollande, like others, took it upon himself and agreed to sign for a program which torpedoed the one he had once supported. It is well known that “if you cannot unite for something, you must unite against someone”.