Benjamin Morel is a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas.
LE FIGARO. - Elisabeth Borne confirmed on Tuesday her desire to postpone the legal retirement age beyond 62 years. Still, she said 65 was not “a totem”. Should this be seen as a classic strategy of political communication which consists in announcing a very strong measure before pretending?
Benjamin Morel. -
The strategy is classic.
It is a question of starting from an unacceptable position for the social partners and, little by little, of letting go of a few symbols.
In doing so, the government hopes to open some breaches in the wall in front of which it finds itself.
First of all, this can allow certain trade union leaders, in particular the CFDT, to claim victory after a few weeks of conflict and thus not to find themselves too weakened in front of their base.
Read alsoRetreats: Elisabeth Borne gives ground before the battle
This can also help to demobilize, a little, in the street and on the picket lines once the symbolic demands have been, if not satisfied, at least diminished.
Finally, this can lead to weakening the opposition front by staggering in particular part of LR without weakening the majority too much internally.
The maneuver is therefore classic, intelligent… and terribly predictable, probably too much to be fully effective.
The Prime Minister also announced the withdrawal of the controversial part of the decree on unemployment insurance which was to reduce the duration of compensation by 40% in the event of an unemployment rate below 6%. Is the executive trying to temper the CFDT before the meeting between Elisabeth Borne and Laurent Berger?
The signal could not be worse vis-à-vis the social partners.
It was not only bad because it went against their demands, it was also bad because it went against the way the reform was presented to them.
Confidence is already not at its highest between the executive and the unions, this type of maneuver could only fan it even more.
Indeed, the unions felt cheated, with good reason, and any negotiation would have been made even more difficult with the management.
Emmanuel Macron is no longer the man of a program, he presents himself today as the man of a historic moment.
Benjamin Morel
By giving in on this point, the government is opening up a way of negotiation without sacrificing much as it seems unlikely, given the economic context, that the figure of 6% will be reached in 2023. We can even expect in the short term a slight increase in unemployment.
Nothing will prevent the government from reviewing the reform frameworks the following year.
In the short term, this gives the unions the feeling of having won a battle, but it must be clearly understood that the government has no interest in having in front of it leaderships that have been weakened and overwhelmed by their bases, as was the case these last months.
This is the best way to witness a conflict that gets bogged down for lack of interlocutors and degenerates for lack of boundaries.
Doesn't the executive risk alienating the LREM electorate?
It's unlikely.
The first five-year term was deeply guided by the idea that if Emmanuel Macron did not have a stable political identity, he had a program on which he had been elected and that this foundation, this contract between him and his electorate, made it possible to ensure the loyalty of the LREM database.
It lasted long enough.
Even after the yellow vests crisis, many of the conclusions drawn by the president from the great debate paradoxically lead to the resumption of the dormant legislative process.
It is not certain that this political fiction had as much foundation in public opinion as in the minds of the strategists of the majority.
Be that as it may, it died out with the succession of crises and the change in the Macronian electorate between 2019 and 2022. The president is no longer the man of a program, he presents himself as the man of a historic moment.
Moreover, even for the LREM electorate, these reforms are no longer seen as a priority, while the "whatever the cost" has largely led public opinion to put the deficit figures into perspective and inflation has made it more urgent. the issue of purchasing power.
We must admit that we could not have imagined a worse social context to launch this reform.
Benjamin Morel
For the government, is the question now less whether the demonstrations against the pension reform will take place but rather knowing their extent and duration?
For the government, the priority is to prevent the conflict from getting bogged down.
To do this, you have to go fast.
In any case, there will be major demonstrations against a backdrop of purchasing power crisis and the whole cannot go without political weakening.
However, most of the time, the final vote of the law is enough to calm the claims.
It is therefore necessary to avoid that the debates get bogged down in Parliament, which argues for the use of a corrective PLFSS whose examination time is both regulated and can be interrupted in the Assembly by the use of 49 paragraph 3. However, this implies being able to pass another bill relating to non-financial aspects that would be judged as cavaliers within a PLFSS.
For this, one must not alienate oneself from all the oppositions,
because it is unlikely that the last 49 paragraph 3 outside the financial text will be sacrificed for this additional text.
This explains the dual strategy of procedural enforcement and relative appeasement on the substance of the reform.
Read alsoAge of departure, hardship, special schemes… What are the contours of the future pension reform?
Then, a lasting crisis risks escaping the social partners and spreading to other demands.
We must admit that we could not have imagined a worse social context to launch this reform.
Unions overwhelmed by their bases in the context of a deep renewal of social movements, a wider acceptance of violence in politics as shown by the crisis of the yellow vests and a population economically taken by the throat… More the reform will pass quickly, the less the danger of loss of control will be… the fact remains that one has the unpleasant impression of seeing the executive in this affair playing with matches in the middle of an oil field.
