Pn a cleverly orchestrated coincidence, the right-wing senatorial majority had planned to consider raising the legal retirement age on Tuesday, March 7, as the unions staged another show of force in the streets against the reform retirements. Even if the obstruction of the left prevented the article from being adopted overnight, the image pretty much sums up the trap in which the government has allowed itself to be trapped.
Having failed to convince public opinion of the merits of the reform, failing to find a single ally among the unions at the end of a consultation which nevertheless lasted three months, the executive is now forced to rely on the right to try to achieve Emmanuel Macron’s campaign commitment to make the French work longer within the framework of a “Pact for production”. He does it with his back to the wall, with the pressure of the street against him. The only demand of the intersyndicale is that Emmanuel Macron renounce the postponement of the legal age, which would amount to a surrender in the open countryside.
The next ten days promise to be crucial for the protagonists of the conflict. After having succeeded in their sixth day of action, despite a drop in the number of strikers, the unions must find a way to extend the mobilization, Saturday March 11 and Wednesday March 15, as they announced. The looming blockages in transport and refineries, the attempts at political recovery by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who on Tuesday March 7 called for a referendum or dissolution, the government’s deafness in the face of the rejection of the reform are increasing the risks of tensions while the social movement has so far been broad, peaceful and popular.
For the government, it is urgent to end it, but the risk for him is to find himself bound hand and foot by the right, which finally sees the opportunity to pass the reform it has been presenting for years in the Senate. This time, Bruno Retailleau, the president of the Les Républicains group in the High Assembly, has no reason to sulk his pleasure. The project roughly corresponds to its outline. He can also afford to “enrich” it with, in particular, the creation of a senior CDI exempt from family contributions, which has the effect of substantially increasing the bill. The Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, had to agree at the start of the week that the reform intended to balance the pay-as-you-go pension system by 2030 could leave behind a deficit of 300 million to 400 million euros.
Who still understands the purpose of this project, which has been presented in turn as the means of financing the major projects of the five-year term, then as the sine qua non condition for saving the pay-as-you-go system, then as a way of strengthening “justice social” and “equity”? The communication blunders committed since the presentation of the text on January 10 show the extent to which the government has ventured into minefield without taking care to ensure its back. The lies told by ministers about the number of beneficiaries of the minimum pension have accentuated the feeling that the reform was not only flawed but unfair. At the point of incomprehension where he has arrived, the best that the executive can hope for is that the Republicans agree to save him the day next week in the National Assembly. He’s not even sure.