Prime Minister Jean Castex, in Matignon on December 14, 2020. -

Jacques Witt / SIPA

In a context of uncertainties about the economic consequences of the epidemic and the pursuit of reforms such as pensions, Jean Castex has decided to relaunch social dialogue.

The Prime Minister will reopen from this Thursday a new round of consultations with unions and employers, announced Wednesday Matignon.

The Prime Minister will receive this Thursday morning the president of the CPME François Asselin, then the boss of the CFDT Laurent Berger on Friday afternoon, before other meetings next week.

Prepare a third “social dialogue conference”

These bilateral meetings, which were not initially on Jean Castex's program this week, should make it possible to prepare for the third “social dialogue conference” since his arrival in Matignon, scheduled for March.

For this, the Prime Minister intends to evoke the systems put in place during the crisis, such as partial unemployment, but also the use of telework or aid for professional retraining, according to his entourage.

But attention is also focused on the future of major issues at a time when Emmanuel Macron's five-year term is entering its last full year: reform of unemployment insurance, for the time being postponed until April 1, 2021 ;

pension reform, for its part suspended sine die and whose flammable nature invites the executive to be cautious;

become part of the “old age and autonomy” law which should make it possible to raise nearly 10 billion euros per year by 2030. “We need to have a moment of consideration with the social partners of all this.

See effectively what is the state of our social accounts, what it is possible to do or not to do ”, thus estimates the entourage of the Prime Minister.

"Yes, we need a pension reform"

For his part, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire estimated Wednesday evening that “we need a pension reform.

Yes, we need a pension reform ”, on the

Paris Première

channel

.

"Not to penalize the French, quite simply because we are living longer, (...) so that tomorrow our children have the same standard of living as us", he continued.

According to him, “unfortunately France today, collectively, does not work enough to finance its social protection system and especially to finance the standard of living of our children and our grandchildren”.

As for the calendar, it will be decided by "the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic but I consider that as soon as the economic difficulties are behind us, that we have started to regain growth, the time will have come to settle a certain number of structural difficulties of the French model, including pensions ”, explained Bruno Le Maire.

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  • Pension reform

  • Patronage

  • Jean Castex

  • Society

  • Union

  • Social dialogue