Pension reform: Elisabeth Borne keeps hope of coaxing opinion

Fearing a social storm, the Prime Minister obtained from Emmanuel Macron a postponement of the presentation of this key text on January 10, 2023. The time, she hopes, to complete consultation with all her Interlocutors. Including the Head of State.

by Claire Gatinois and Ivanne Trippenbach

Trains on strike, closed doors stores, traffic jams over hundreds of kilometers and demonstrations in the capital: the memory of this month of December 2019 and this spoiled Christmas for thousands of families is enough to freeze blood of Elisabeth Borne. Three years ago, the pension reform ignited the streets, when Edouard Philippe, his predecessor, remained straight in his boots. Would the juppeist be an anti-model for the one who made his political classes with Lionel Jospin? The first failed to make the French work up to 64, the second wants to go “at the end” of the dialogue, says those around him.

While winter frosts extend over the country, Matignon’s tenant plays the watch for, she hopes, passing the cursed reform of Emmanuel Macron without triggering a social storm. An eye thrown across the Channel, where the United Kingdom is mired in monster strikes, is enough to convince it of the explosive climate that reigns in Europe. Sunday evening, after three days of intense discussions with the President of the Republic, Elisabeth Borne obtained from the Head of State “a few short weeks” of reprieve, shifting the presentation of the reform on January 10, 2023, and no longer Thursday, December 15, as initially planned. A favor torn from a condition: that this postponement does not shift the implementation of the future law, desired for the summer of 2023, after a visit to the Council of Ministers on January 23.

There are still unexplored corners, argued the Prime Minister, taking up the file from the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt. At the top of the government, we know very well that there will never be a “deal” with the CFDT of Laurent Berger. But hope is allowed by a “non-aggression pact”, in return for agreements on arduousness and long careers. A discussion that the Elysée says “on the right track” behind the closed doors.

“Accelerate touraine”

The calendar maneuver also aims to put pressure on Eric Ciotti, new president elected in extremis at the head of the Les Républicains (LR) party. “We will see if the chef,” we whisper at the palace. The line of the right is no longer obvious. The boss of LR deputies in the National Assembly, Olivier Marleix, now pleads for a departure at 63 years in 2027. The Senator (LR) of Vendée Bruno Retailleau entrusted, on Friday, to Elisabeth Borne which he defended the 65 years but Noticed “still that it was unfavorable for the most modest, and that it is necessary to accelerate Touraine”, reference to the reform which lengthens the duration of the contribution to 43 annuities by 2035.

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/Media reports cited above.