For a left in need of universality, of the ability to speak to as many people as possible, the pension reform is almost a godsend. Perhaps the last consensual social gain, reward for a lifetime of work, retirement escapes the lawsuits in assistantship which affect other social benefits, from the active solidarity income (RSA) to unemployment benefits. His defense is therefore valuable ground for the left. Who could allow him, finally, to escape the trials of miserabilism and disconnection, by arguing that the two-thirds of French people opposed to the reform are neither ” lazy “ nor disconnected ideologues.
This accusation is perpetuated however: on Sunday January 29, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, denounced in the pages of the Parisian the “laziness and bobo leftism” and his “profound contempt for the value of work, which the workers and the popular classes defend”. At a time when the mobilization persists against the reform, the left, determined to renew the two ends of the debate between the value of work and the “right to laziness”, seems to hesitate on how. Is this really the right time to reactivate this discussion? There is a risk in doing so: losing consensus among this majority of French people opposed to the reform, who are not all on the left or followers of philosophical debates on the “leisure society”. Not to do it either: by remaining too defensive, left-wing parties lose the opportunity to advance an alternative narrative on work, its mutations and free time.
Those who approach the subject generally make a point of history. This is the case of François Ruffin, who evokes these polls carried out in the 1980s, in which the French thought that the retirement age would decline, to be fixed at 55 years. “What is the meaning of the story? The reduction of working time »believes the deputy New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes, Picardie Debout), for whom the neoliberal turn driven by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s reversed the logic of social progress everywhere.
The “lazy” left and Vichy
In recent years, on the left, few have ventured to talk about reducing working hours. Perhaps because the 35 hours, their disputed track record in terms of job creation, have been swept away politically by the “work more to earn more” sarkozyste and its exemptions from overtime. In “The 35 hours in France: why are they still under debate?” (2021), the economist Philippe Askenazy recalls that the accusations of a left ” lazy Girl “ go back to Vichy, this speech of June 17, 1940 by Pétain targeting the Popular Front and the 40-hour week: “The spirit of enjoyment has replaced the spirit of sacrifice. We claimed more than we served. We wanted to save the effort: today we encounter misfortune. » Ultimately, he believes, “a constant doctrine of French liberals on working time”.
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