Will the persistent hostility to pension reform measured in opinion polls result in more processions on Tuesday?
As the text begins its examination in the Social Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, the second day of mobilization will be scrutinized by the executive.
He admitted bluntly on January 19 that the unions had largely succeeded in bringing them together.
With more than a million people expected on the streets according to the Home Office
,
it could be just as buoyant.
“You should not bet on a mobilization that is dying out”,
anticipates an adviser to the executive, when a minister expects a new day of galleys even if the anticipated declarations of the strikers settle down significantly.
“There will be a lot of people,”
prefers to warn an executive adviser.
But
“if there are more people, it will be problematic”,
worries a member of the government.
Emmanuel Macron does not intend to flinch.
While leaving his prime minister and his government to struggle against the protesters.
"The president will choose his moment to speak, if he has to,"
sweeps François Patriat, the boss of the Macronist senators.
For the moment, charge Élisabeth Borne to remind that it is not possible to abandon the postponement of the legal age of departure to 64 years.
The most symbolic point of the reform
"is no longer negotiable",
she insisted last weekend, while the executive argues that it has already given up maintaining the objective of a postponement to 65 years old brandished during the presidential campaign.
Read alsoNupes: a united front against pension reform
During a meeting organized in Matignon, Sunday evening, the head of government invited the ministers present to be
"on the offensive"
and to
"go to the front"
.
The executive does not want to allow any doubt to flourish around its determination to carry out the reform to the end.
64 years, the most symbolic point of the reform
In the wake of Elisabeth Borne, those close to the Head of State believe that the word of the executive must be strengthened.
“Pedagogy is useless.
People are fixed on 64 years, so now we have to do politics",
underlines a parliamentarian who has the ear of Emmanuel Macron, citing as an example Gérald Darmanin, who regretted that the Nupes seeks to
"mess up the country”
.
A way to remobilize the macronist core and right-wing voters, when the position of LR deputies is sometimes wavering.
“It's not the same thing to be against the reform and against the social movement”,
judges a minister, as with the hope that the disturbances will tire the French.
Above all, the executive sees the opportunity to divide the public debate with the maximalist positions of the Insoumis on billionaires and the relationship to work rather than by attacking the union front which opts for the hour for appointments widely spaced out and in no hurry to trigger renewable strikes.
“Now we have to descend into the arena, stay the course, not respond to the permanent attacks.
And, as they say, “the dogs bark, the caravan passes”,
advances a senator from the first circle.
Postponing the retirement age to 64 is an unfair totem
Marisol Touraine, former Minister of Labor
This is without taking into account the divergent voices that are being heard within the macronist galaxy itself.
Thus Marisol Touraine, the ex-Minister of Labor, crushed the pension reform, described Monday on France Inter as
"passport for far-right populism".
“The postponement of the retirement age to 64 is an unfair totem”,
denounced the former socialist who supported Emmanuel Macron in 2022.
“She and François Rebsamen
(who also opposed the postponement of the legal age at 64 in
Le Figaro
)
knew what was in the presidential program.
They come out of the woods because they watched the polls,”
quipped a minister.
Faced with a mobilization that is likely to be long-term, the executive intends to be
“clear about what is intangible
(64 years old)
and flexible about the surrounding parameters
(work for seniors, rights for women, etc.)
so as not to overflow the vase of mobilization”,
according to the analysis made by a member of the government.
An adviser agrees:
“Seniors and women are the only points that can evolve during the parliamentary discussion.”
Invited to the meeting of majority deputies on Tuesday after an intervention on Monday evening at the executive office of the presidential party, Elisabeth Borne will have the opportunity to remind her troops of her expectations.
More and more embarrassed by the wall of opinion that rises.