Incognito. This is the word that seems to best define the first meeting of the President of the Republic with the new leaders of the largest social organizations in France. In turn, Patrick Martin for the Medef, Sophie Binet for the CGT and Marylise Léon for the CFDT, will be, or have been received by Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée.
After the boss of the bosses last week, it is therefore the turn of the secretary general of the Montreuil plant to meet for the first time face to face with the head of state this Tuesday, August 29. If the meeting is presented as a contact and is not intended to move forward on certain specific issues, Sophie Binet did not hesitate to be vindictive at the microphone of France Inter the same morning. "I will tell him that he must come down from his ivory tower, that I hear with interest about a referendum and that the first subject on which a referendum must be held is the pension reform," she warned.
The number one of the radical union also wants to put the question of "union repression" on the table, while one of the confederal secretaries of the CGT, Sébastien Menesplier, was summoned as a "legal person" by the gendarmerie for September 6. According to a CGT leader, this follows a power cut on March 8, at the height of the protest against the pension reform, in Annonay (Ardèche), stronghold of Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt, and which had deprived several thousand homes of electricity.
Resumption of social temptations
To finish cooling the atmosphere, the meeting is held a few days after the announcement by the inter-union of a new day of mobilization on October 13. The watchword is no longer pensions but wage increases. A question that the number of the CFDT, which must be received next week, intends to address with Emmanuel Macron, it is announced on the side of the reformist central.
The relative discretion of the Guests and the Élysée on these meetings contrasts with the tone of the long sequence on pension reform. For weeks, the various members of the inter-union had asked the head of state to receive them. A request to which the main interested party had answered in the negative, leaving, at least in appearance, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to manage the file.
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These discussions also do not take place within the great initiative that Emmanuel Macron is leading this fall. This remains confined to the presidents of the political parties represented in Parliament, who are invited to a meeting on Wednesday 30 August. The objective is to allow everyone to address the subjects that are important to them and to find "useful agreements for the France", taking the form of "immediate decisions", "bills and proposals for laws" and even "referendum projects", in the words of the Head of State.