“Macron and Berger knew each other during the quinquennium of Holland and that’s where their dispute stems from”

2023-04-17 17:15:09

IAccounts between them had to be settled in the open. Since the outbreak of hostilities in mid-January, the pension dispute has resembled a boxing match between two protagonists who don’t want to let go. On the one hand, Emmanuel Macron, 45, re-elected President of the Republic in 2022 for a non-renewable term. On the other, Laurent Berger, 54 years old, reconfirmed the same year at the head of the CFDT for a mandate that he intends to let go along the way.

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The depths of the air already have a scent of inventory, so much so that it is a certain idea of ​​trade unionism, politics and the relationship to others that is played out through their constantly renewed contests. The staging, both dramatized and controlled to the millimeter, is made to spare the suspense without anything irremediable being committed. Witness the about the cedist in The Parisian of April 16: in reaction to the rapid promulgation of the law on pensions, Laurent Berger promises to “break the house” the 1^is-May, without excluding a future return to the negotiating table, but “not by answering when we [les] whistle ». Radicality combined with the velvet glove, or the art of not insulting the future.

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The two leaders met under the five-year term of François Hollande, and this is where the three dimensions of their dispute stem from. In the eyes of the trade unionist, Emmanuel Macron will forever embody the liberal drift that derailed the last five-year term of the left. Alongside Manuel Valls, the Minister of the Economy at the time was indeed pushing for the relaxation of the labor code which was to lead to violent demonstrations against the El Khomri bill.

In the eyes of the President of the Republic, the cedist is the one who claims to make the social partners play a role that goes beyond them. “To co-construct, enrich, refine and thus facilitate the implementation speed of reforms, okay, acknowledged Emmanuel Macron during the 2017 campaign. But that the unions can claim “to embody the general interest”, that no. However, the CFDT claims to carry a project of social and societal transformation.

bad allies

This quarrel around the role of the unions could have stopped there if the pension conflict had not invested Laurent Berger with a much more political dimension. Having become, thanks to the good will of the outgoing leader of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, the most media-friendly spokesperson for the inter-union, he symbolized the unity of a universe which, by displaying its divisions and rivalries too much, risked to weaken. The unionization rate in France remains one of the lowest in Europe.

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