Considered to be close to Élisabeth Borne, who came from the Socialist Party like her, Olivier Dussopt followed the trajectory of the former prime minister. Maybe a little too much for his liking. Entering the Rue de Grenelle at the same time as the latter was taking Matignon, the Minister of Labour left the government at the same time as her. He was replaced in his post by the President of the Urban Community of Greater Reims, Catherine Vautrin. "I am proud of what I have done, under the authority of Elisabeth Borne with important and difficult reforms," he tweeted on Friday.
His stay lasted a little less than a year and eight months. A fairly short period of time, but enough to have carried out one of the most emblematic reforms of Emmanuel Macron's second five-year term: the raising of the retirement age to 64. The case was as much a sign of confidence as it was a poisoned gift. "I knew that by carrying out this reform, I was not only going to make friends," he euphemized at the beginning of January 2023. Anxious to pull the plug on the protests as much as possible, the minister embarked on a major consultation with the social partners during the drafting of the text, at the end of 2022. Or rather, he instructed his cabinet to lead the exchanges. "We didn't see much of him at the time," recalls a management source. Never far from her old files, Élisabeth Borne - Minister of Labour between July 2020 and May 2022 - took back control of the negotiations in mid-December. A first slap in the face for the minister.
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During the first four months of 2023, the unions in the streets and the opposition in the hemicycle of the National Assembly will make life hell for Olivier Dussopt. The left-wing oppositions have not forgiven this former member of the house for defending an increase in the retirement age. The presentation of the text to the lower house in mid-February, following a fast-track procedure, thus saw the first and to date the last loss of public composure by a man who is still in restraint. In front of the Nupes deputies who stood up and left the room chanting "we are here", Olivier Dussopt, red with anger, shouted at them: "you have insulted me for 15 days, no one has cracked and we are here, in front of you, for the reform".
To make matters worse, the LR group, natural allies on the text, has not ceased to give the government a hard time. Unable to follow the instructions given with discipline, they forced Olivier Dussopt and Élisabeth Borne to multiply concessions to finally force the latter to draw a 49.3 to have the text adopted.
Broken dialogue with trade unions
In parallel with the legislative process, the tenant of the rue Grenelle became one of the favorite targets of the demonstrations, of which several hundred thousand according to the police, or several million according to the CGT, hit the pavement fourteen times between January 19 and June 6. Faced with the well-rehearsed rhetoric of the unions united for the occasion, the executive struggled to find a convincing response. Anxious to show that the reform will also produce winners, Olivier Dussopt announced in mid-February that 40,000 pensioners should see their pensions rise to 1200,<> euros. Not convinced, Socialist Party MP Jérôme Guedj discovered that in fact the number of beneficiaries should be four times smaller.
Olivier Dussopt, still hand-in-hand with Élisabeth Borne, was tasked with relaunching the dialogue with the social partners during the summer. The first few weeks give reason for hope. As promised, the Minister of Labour faithfully voted on an agreement reached by the social partners on value sharing. Alas, heated confrontations over supplementary pension money and unemployment insurance will break these meagre advances.
Anxious to relaunch the consultation once again, while negotiations on career paths and employment of seniors are looming, the Head of State finally considered that a change of face was necessary. It is also a way to avoid any unpleasant surprises as the former Minister of Labour awaits the verdict of a trial for favouritism on 17 January.