Pension reforms, Nicolas Forissier knows. “It’s my fifth, I was already present in 1993 for that of Edouard Balladur”, says the deputy Les Républicains (LR) of Indre. When the right has its “slingers” in power and the boss of its senators, Bruno Retailleau, calls in the Sunday newspaper to remove from the elected Lot, Aurélien Pradié, his post of executive vice-president of the party in the event of a vote against, Mr. Forissier assumes his unfailing support for the reform carried out by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne.
What to return in the small papers of his political family. ” It’s funny. A few months ago, we were still suspects, observes the former Secretary of State for Agriculture. People like me were accused of being “macroncompatibles”. What is happening with this reform allows us to say that our line is winning. »
When Le Figaro revealed in the fall the existence of weekly meetings of these supporters of a rapprochement with the majority, some comrades offered to carry their cards to encourage a move to the Renaissance group. Isolated and designated as good to buy (and for cheap, according to their detractors), the “constructive” are sometimes abused, like Alexandre Vincendet. “A colleague had told me that I had to leave, because I did not share the line of the group. Today, it is he who refuses to vote for this pension reform.smiles the elected representative of the Rhône, in favor of “a majority pact with the government”.
A very isolated position, but within a divided group the ugly ducklings of the day before see in this comeback a victory for their line, that of a right consistent in their eyes with its DNA and constructive with the majority. “On this reform, there is a question of responsibility and whether we are a government party or not, advances the deputy of Haute-Savoie, Virginie Duby-Muller. One of the markers of the right is budgetary rigour. The proof, we have nevertheless reformed pensions four times. » His colleague from Seine-et-Marne, Jean-Louis Thiériot, agrees: “We need to restore the accounts and in this sense this reform is necessary. »
Less embodied narrative
But, in the media, budgetary orthodoxy – in the name of safeguarding the pay-as-you-go system – writes a story less embodied than this France which started working before the age of 21, dear to Aurélien Pradié, and designated victim of an unfair reform on this point. “I also have a popular electorate who voted for me in a city like Annemasse, historically on the left, reminds Mme Duby-Muller. So the popular classes are not the prerogative of some. »
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