Pension reform in France

2023-04-30 13:21:25

French unions face this Monday may 1 like a special date. The wave of demonstrations and strikes against the pension reform will undoubtedly mark the Labor Day in France. After three months of massive protests —the most massive in this 21st century in the bustling neighboring country—, the unpopular rise in the minimum retirement age of 62 to 64 years (with 43 years of contributions to receive a full pension) was promulgated on April 15. At first glance, the fight ended in a victory for President Emmanuel Macron. Curiously, however, the majority of French public opinion sees the unions as the “winners” of this conflict. They have achieved a moral triumph.

Despite not having stopped the pension reform, the public image of workers’ organizations improves after the fight with Macron

Some will rightly say that polls do not eat or compensate for two more years of work in physically demanding professions. But gaining the support of public opinion does serve to influence society. The fact of having marked this Labor Day in red on the calendar is part of this reconciliation —just temporary? Or more lasting?—of the unions with a considerable part of the French.

“It will be, without a doubt, the 1st of May most important since 2002″, highlighted on Friday the national secretary of the Solidaires union, Aurélien Boudon, on the set of ‘BFM TV’. Then, more than a million people took to the streets against the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had qualified a few days before for the second round of the presidential elections.

Union unity and international support

“This May 1, 2023 will be unprecedented in France. (…) It will be the first time that all the unions make a call” to manifest in a unitary way, assured the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, on Friday in an opinion forum in the left-wing newspaper ‘L’Humanité’. Having put together a unitary block to oppose the increase in the legal retirement age, all the big French unions – from the moderate CFDT and UNSA to the combative CGT and Solidaires – will protest together on this Labor Day. Something very unusual in the neighboring country.

The unions trust that the traditional parades on May 1 will be the most massive since 2002

The intelligence services speak of a “historic” May 1 and estimate that there will be around 100,000 protesters in Paris and some 650,000 in the French territory as a whole, according to estimates that should be taken with a grain of salt. The presence in the capital of some 100 trade unionists from other countries Europeans and the rest of the world. The massive demonstrations in France have been the spearhead of recent months with a significant growth in union protests, especially due to the few wage increases that compensate for inflation, from the United Kingdom to Germany, passing through Belgium.

“They do not leave weakened, rather the opposite”

“Although the pension reform was approved —through the controversial decree 49.3— and validated by the Constitutional Council, we cannot speak of a defeat for the union organizations, since they managed to lead a historic mobilization,” he explained to El Periódico de Catalunya. , from the Prensa Ibérica group, the political scientist Sophie Béroud, professor at the Lumière Lyon-2 University. According to this trade union expert, “the current situation is very different from that of Margaret Thatcher with the miners’ strike of 1985, when he managed to weaken the British labor movement by imposing himself on that mobilization. Perhaps Macron had the same intention to weaken the unions by imposing his pension reform. But they do not come out of this conflict weakened, rather the opposite.

Of the 12 days of protests throughout the country against the pension reform, according to the austere data of the Ministry of the Interior, in five of them there were around a million protesters. Two of them (January 31 and March 7) saw the highest number of protesters in a union strike since 1962, when the French police began counting the number of protesters.

“It was one of the few times in the contemporary history of France that the government insisted on applying a measure despite very hostile public opinion,” said about 70% of the French against the text, according to polls, recalls the political scientist Christophe Bouillaud, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble. The then president Jacques Chirac in 2003 or Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010 had already carried out reforms of the retirement system that sparked waves of protests. However, Macron has distinguished himself from his predecessors by doing so through a “decree”, without a vote on the measure in the National Assembly, and despite increased hostility from public opinion.

Change of leadership

The democratic crisis has taken its toll on the popularity of the centrist leader, which fell to its lowest levels since the yellow vest revolt in December 2018. An unpopularity that has been reflected in the casseroles that have accompanied the movements of the president and his ministers for nearly two weeks. Unions also handed out some 30,000 red cards and 10,000 whistles to protest against Macron during the French Cup soccer final on Saturday.

Even the presidential team had to go to a self-generator of electricity before the numerous power outages, organized by EDF workers, which affected the movements of the Head of State. “Cutting off electricity does not serve to fill the fridge of the French (…) nor to reduce unemployment,” defended Olivier Véran, spokesman for the Executive. A critical discourse on union actions that is hardly taking hold, unlike other social conflicts.

In contrast to Macron’s declining popularity, union leaders are honeymooning polls. According to a study by the Odoxa institute for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, 58% of French people see Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT, as the “big winner” of this period, and 49%, the rest of the unions. A percentage much higher than the 36% who saw the great benefit of the far-right of Marine Le Penthe political party that, curiously, comes out more strengthened from the current struggle, despite its almost non-existent presence in the protests and the hostility of the unions with the ultra-rightists.

This support has facilitated leadership changes at the head of the two main unions. Sophie Binet41, took the reins of the CGT at the end of March —being the first woman to lead this historic organization—, while Marylise Leon, 46, will take over from Berger as head of the CFDT in June. In addition, he has been accompanied by a increase in more than 30,000 affiliates —many of them young— for both the CFDT and the CGT. It is a significant increase in a country that for decades has been characterized by the contrast between large demonstrations and a low percentage of workers affiliated with unions, currently only 9%.

“It is necessary to see now if this is a change in the dynamics of the decline of the unions or just a momentary sympathy,” explains political scientist Jean-Marie Pernot, a union specialist, in an interview with ‘L’Humanité’. According to Béroud, “the great challenge now for the unions is to show that they have not suffered a defeat, but a victory. They must prevent people from falling into resignation and that the extreme right benefits from popular despair”.