Paris (AFP)

The opposition concentrated on Thursday its attacks on the appointment to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor of Jean-François Cirelli, president of the asset manager BlackRock France, denouncing a choice of the "capitalization camp" in the battle on pension reform.

While the mobilization against the reform entered its 29th day Thursday, beating the longest transport blockage of 1986-1987, this honorary promotion sparked the ire of the opposition, left and right combined, the PS seeing in it "the dark side of pension reform. "

Questioned by AFP, Jean-François Cirelli assures however to have "not sought to influence the government neither on the current pension reform, nor on the Pact law".

"Regarding pensions, we (BlackRock) have always said, and I the first, that we were aware that the choice of France is the pay-as-you-go system and it will remain so," defended Mr. Cirelli.

"Blackrock is not a pension fund, it does not distribute any retirement savings product and we do not intend to do so. We will continue to bring our expertise to our customers who are large French financial institutions manage the savings of their customers, "said the president of Blackrock France.

The publication by the daily newspaper L'Humanité at the beginning of December of an internal document of about fifteen pages attributed to BlackRock, detailing the interest of developing retirement savings by capitalization in France based in particular on the Pact law passed in the spring, had already sparked an outcry among opponents of the reform.

Cirelli said on this subject Thursday that he "welcomed in a public document, put online in June after the vote on the Pacte law, certain measures provided for in the text", and assured that it was not "neither of a secret document, nor of instructions to the government".

His explanations, however, will be hard to convince the opposition, which believes that BlackRock would become one of the main beneficiaries of the pension reform.

- A "provocation" -

"This is anything but anecdotal, BlackRock, it is simply the dark side of pension reform (...). It is indeed the choice of a camp, that of the capitalization funds", denounced Olivier Faure, first secretary of the PS, on France 2.

While the boss of the PCF Fabien Roussel and the deputy LFI Danièle Obono saw in this appointment a "provocation", the president of Debout la France Nicolas Dupont-Aignan accused him the boss of BlackRock of "enriching an American pension fund by taking advantage of the destruction of our pension system. "

This controversy adds to an already complicated situation for the government, almost a month after the strike began, while dialogue with the unions seems to be deadlocked.

"BlackRock is an investment fund that supports the development of infrastructure in France", stressed on LCI the Minister for Ecological Transition Elisabeth Borne to explain Matignon's choice to integrate Mr. Cirelli in the promotion of New Year. "We can make short cuts, caricature presentations, (but Jean-François Cirelli) it's someone who has had a career," she added.

Economic adviser to Jacques Chirac (1995-2002) then deputy director of the Prime Minister's office Jean-Pierre Raffarin (2002-2004), Jean-François Cirelli then directed GDF-Suez then Engie from 2005 to 2015.

Asked by AFP about the benefit that BlackRock could derive from the pension reform, Laure Delahousse, deputy director general of the French Association of Financial Management (AFG), stressed that retirement savings were "completely absent from pension reform ".

"The impact for the French of the pension reform on retirement savings will be low. What was important is more the Pacte law and the revitalization of retirement savings," she said. still said, seeing in BlackRock "an asset manager like the others who has the same objective as everyone else, that is to say to make the savings of his clients grow".

An American company established in France for 13 years, BlackRock claims to manage a portfolio of assets of some 7,000 billion dollars worldwide, including around 30 billion with French customers.

© 2020 AFP