Paris (AFP)

He did not want to "enter a balance of power" on the pension reform, he has hardened the standoff: Edouard Philippe has trouble convincing that he has relaxed his style and feeds critics on his "budget obsession" .

It began Wednesday with a white flag, hoisted at the beginning of his presentation of the pension bill: "This reform is not a battle, I do not want war rhetoric, I do not want to enter this report. force, "says Philippe, omnipresent on the record.

In the audience, Laurent Berger, blue scarf tied around the neck, is preparing to strangle himself, he who has previously supported the reform: "a red line is crossed" with the mention of "age "equilibrium" at 64, enrages the boss of the CFDT at the exit.

"Berger's reaction went very fast, very high, very strong," said a source in the executive, less surprised by the predictable opposition of the union leader than by the "strong tone".

On Thursday, both sides showed their willingness to "quickly resume the dialogue". "My door is open and my hand extended," insisted the Prime Minister who was to call the social partners in the afternoon.

But the episode causes perplexity: why so steer one of the main allies? Is it not a resurgence of Edouard Philippe's "somewhat stiff style" or "boxer", as described by a local elected official who is close to him?

This attitude had made him clumsily close the door to Laurent Berger a year ago, the beginnings of the crisis of yellow vests, while the boss of the plant was proposing to hold a social conference.

Since then, Mr. Philippe claims to have "heard the critics saying that this government was sometimes too vertical in its way of making decisions". "We consider that we no longer have the choice, that the capacity we had at the beginning of the five-year period to be able to reform the sword clear no longer," is abundant in his entourage.

But on the other hand, "being soft knee is not what France needs and this is not why we put Edouard Philippe Matignon," said the same friend.

- "Farm but not closed" -

Thus, on the issue of pensions, Edouard Philippe has multiplied consultations with the social partners being "firm but not closed," according to a formula repeated Wednesday. "It's someone right, who says things," says a union official. "But he has a budget obsession," he laments.

This trial is actually recurrent when the political situation is tense, revealing the macronic dividing line between left-wing historical marchers and more recent right-wing defectors like Mr Philippe, whose power is gradually spreading.

At Matignon, we protest against this lawsuit by highlighting the concessions granted despite their cost: minimum pension to 1,000 euros, family rights, hardship ...

However, "a system that is not funded is a system that does not exist," slice the deputy LREM Thierry Solère, close to Mr. Philippe and whose formula summarizes the software of the Prime Minister.

On the other hand, the economist Antoine Bozio, who inspired the reform during the presidential campaign, laments in a tribune in Le Monde that "the government has managed to obscure all the possible social advances of such a system, to implement before a budget measure ".

As for Emmanuel Macron, he is careful not to intervene publicly on the merits of the case, even if the arbitrations have obviously been taken under his aegis. Placing Mr. Philippe on the front line.

"We fully assume this discretion, it does not mean that we will be silent," it is said in the entourage of the head of state. "We remain attentive, but the reform is in the hands of the Prime Minister", we add, quoting "the spirit of the Fifth Republic".

© 2019 AFP