Paris (AFP)

Even if there has never been a united front of unions against pension reform, the government's offer to negotiate an alternative to the pivotal age has ratified their division into two antagonistic blocs: those which privilege "logic of dialogue "and those who" organize the battle ".

The government's plan to set up a single points pension plan has divided unions from the start. Those called "protesters", CGT and FO in mind, oppose the reform as a whole, believing that it will lower pensions, and are at the forefront of the uninterrupted movement of strikes and demonstrations, which arrived on Sunday at its 39th consecutive day.

The "reformists", CFDT, CFTC and Unsa, are in favor of point retirement. But their firm opposition to the "parametric" measure, in other words purely budgetary, from a pivotal age to 64 years in 2027 accompanied by a penalty for those who would leave earlier, could have made believe for a moment at a front united union.

The outstretched hand of the Prime Minister, who proposed on Saturday to withdraw this pivotal age in the short term on condition of finding alternative sources of funding to balance the regime, highlighted the gap between the two camps.

"We have gone from a logic of confrontation to a logic of dialogue", underlined in the Sunday Journal the number one of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, welcoming a "victory" of his union "but also of the Unsa and the CFTC ". Laurent Escure (Unsa) was delighted to be able to discuss "calmly" with the government, and Cyril Chabanier (CFTC) to be able to enter "into the process of dialogue".

A burst of reactions which irritated Yves Veyrier (FO), more than ever opposed to the reform. "I am not a conspirator, but there are times when I could almost become one," he said on France Info, stressing that "a lot of communication was ready" as of Saturday afternoon "to welcome the compromise ", and qualifying the reformist unions as" secondary actors "in the mobilization.

Going further, Laurent Brun, of the CGT Cheminots, denounced on BFMTV "an operation of mutual promotion between the government and the CFDT to stage a pseudo-concession which in reality is not one". "For the government, it seems that there is a single union, while there are eight," added the general secretary of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, on BFMTV

"The organizations that are mobilized (...) do not change their mind" on the reform, "and it is they who organize the battle since the beginning of the conflict," insisted Mr. Brun.

- "hardly" social movement -

These two trade union poles "are two very independent structures from each other, which also explains why the social movement is barely" because "in the past, when social movements won, there was union unity ", analyzes Dominique Andolfatto, political specialist in trade unions, interviewed by AFP.

On the one hand, he explains, a Laurent Berger "rather in agreement with the general architecture" of the project, but who should not initially "give too much the impression of supporting it", d where in particular his opposition to the pivotal age.

His predecessor, François Chérèque, had indeed plunged the CFDT into a deep internal crisis and faced the massive defection of militants after having very quickly reached an agreement with the Raffarin government on the pension reform of 2003.

On the other side, the intersyndicale, led by the CGT, is faced with the risk of running out of steam for a day-to-day movement more costly for strikers. Especially since, underlines Mr. Andolfatto, "there are people in the street, but compared to other social movements, ultimately not that much", especially compared to the pension reform of 2010. However, the Sarkozy government "had held out", he recalls.

For Dominique Andolfatto, what the pension crisis reveals is, beyond its divisions, "the impasse in which the trade union movement finds itself, which has renounced what should have been its fundamentals: having members" . Because "it is always that which impressed the power, whatever it is".

© 2020 AFP