Paris (AFP)
We must "press pause" on the subject of pension reform, while safeguarding jobs and business competitiveness is the priority, estimated on Saturday the president of Medef Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux.
"We have to press pause for a few months so that we put all our energy into what matters, that is to say the production tool," said Mr. Roux de Bézieux during a debate with the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger at the Aix-en-Seine Economic Meetings.
"It's a break to resume, not a break forever," he said.
Mr. Berger, who had already denounced Friday the wish of Emmanuel Macron to relaunch this summer the "concertation" on the financial balances of the pension system, for his part noted Saturday "such opposition in our country on this subject that 'we have no interest in putting ourselves on the figure at the start of the school year or during the summer on the subject ".
For the president of Medef, "if we have managed to save jobs, if we do not have the million (additional) unemployed people that everyone promises us at the end of the year, we can leave."
"And there then yes, we will have to discuss pensions because there is this universal system project, but there is also a huge financial hole," he added.
Mr. de Roux de Bézieux also reiterated his reservations on a universal points system wanted by Mr. Berger.
The universal system, "as we start from a very complicated system, it's good on Powerpoint", but "I find that it doesn't work," he said.
In an interview with the regional daily press published on Thursday evening, Mr. Macron affirmed that "there would (there would be) no abandonment" of his project of universal system, which he always judges "just", even if 'he says he is "open" to his reform "being transformed".
© 2020 AFP