Paris (AFP)

"It will be necessary" to work "a little more" to get out of the economic crisis linked to Covid-19: the injunction of the bosses boss, dubbed by a member of the government, has aroused strong criticism from the union side, on the left and beyond.

On the threshold of the long Easter weekend, a sentence in the columns of the Figaro of the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, did not go unnoticed.

"We will have to ask ourselves sooner or later the question of working time, public holidays and paid vacation to accompany the economic recovery and facilitate, by working a little more, the creation of additional growth", estimated the employer manager in this interview.

Because "the important thing is to restart the economic machine and reproduce mass wealth, in an attempt to erase, from 2021, the growth losses of 2020", he argued.

Far from distancing himself from the employer's words, the Secretary of State for the Economy, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, went in the same direction. She warned that it would be "probably more work than we have done before" to "catch up" the loss of activity caused by the containment in progress since March 17, and which Emmanuel Macron could announce on Monday evening the extension .

"The challenge is to go back to work full pot," she insisted on franceinfo on Saturday.

Deputy chairman of Medef, Patrick Martin clarified on the same channel that any possible modification of the duration of working time, in the field, could only be considered if the company and employment are "threatened", "during a time, respecting the law "and" in agreement with the trade union organizations ".

"It's not a sacrifice, it's a coup," he said.

- "Old moons" -

But the unions do not hear it that way, they who already deplore the exceptions to the working time limits decided by ordinances as part of the health emergency bill, in particular the increase to 60 hours of the maximum weekly working time . Not to mention partial unemployment, or partial activity, which often results in a 16% drop in income for beneficiaries, 8 million today, or more than one in three employees.

"It is totally indecent. Today workers, like everyone else, are paying the cost of this crisis. It is not up to them to pay afterwards," said France 2 on Sunday the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, referring to the "old moons that are coming back: + we will have to work more +, + it will take sweat and tears +, etc.".

The secretary general of Force Ouvrière, Yves Veyrier, put it on Monday on CNews that the employees did not take pleasure "in the current situation of confinement".

"There is an enormous psychological stress: one is afraid when one has to go to work today, one is afraid for his health; when one is in situation of partial activity, one is afraid for his job to come; when one is confined telecommuting, it's heavy. You know, we're not going to get out of there rested or out of vacation, it's not that situation at all, "he observed on RTL on Sunday.

Lashed on the left by the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, who was moved by the "cynicism" of Medef, the call to "work more" was also on the right by Xavier Bertrand (ex-LR), President of the Hauts-de-France Regional Council.

An employee who is "not responsible for all that", we tell him "at the exit it is (him) who (will) pay the bill? But what do we want, we want driving the French crazy? ", prevailed the former Minister of Labor of Nicolas Sarkozy, adding:" If at the exit the answer is austerity, they (the officials of the executive) have nothing understood at all ".

But for the leader of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau, questioned on Monday on Franceinfo, "we only get out of the trials, individual or collective, by additional efforts". "Everyone will have to make an effort. Both companies and employees".

© 2020 AFP