Paris (AFP)

Adept at dialogue and consensus, man of networks, the president of the Mutualité française, Thierry Beaudet, elected Tuesday president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese), is also a "reformer" who will have to put this assembly on new tracks. .

According to his supporters, his "listening" skills will be particularly useful to him within the Third Chamber of the Republic, whose job is to forge compromise positions, "beyond the postures of the organizations that make it up".

He is "a man of balance", "capable of navigating in contradictory and conflictual situations", describes the former secretary general of the FSU Gérard Aschieri.

A man with "significant reforming capacity", who "knew how to move a world that was quite frozen", that of the MGEN where he cut his teeth, adds Thierry Cadart, of the CFDT.

Aged 59, a former teacher, Thierry Beaudet has chaired the National Federation of French Mutuals since June 2016, which defines itself as "the spokesperson for 518 mutuals".

In 2017, he created the VYV group, resulting from the merger between MGEN, Harmonie mutuelle and Istya.

"It is the leading French health group, with more than 10 million people protected, 1,500 establishments and care and support services. It is a group of nearly 10 billion euros in turnover that I created and that I chair, "he told AFP, describing himself as a" business leader ".

Coming from the social and solidarity economy, Mr. Beaudet, the only one in the running for the head of the Cese, had received from the beginnings of his candidacy the support of Unsa (National Union of Autonomous Trade Unions), of which he is a member, and CFDT.

The French Mutuality is alongside the reformist union one of the founding members of the "Pact of the power to live", created in March 2019 to "converge ecology and social".

- "Pivot position" -

One foot in the business world, the other in the union world, Mr. Beaudet emerged as a candidate capable of bringing people together.

"It is the greatest common denominator", underlined to the World Raymond Soubie, former social adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy and boss of the consulting company Alixio.

According to several union sources, the Medef sought to counter this candidacy which did not come from its ranks, by pushing in particular that of Thierry Da Costa, national secretary of the French Red Cross.

But he had to admit "that there was no automatism for the president of the Cese to be someone from the employers", says the former boss of Unsa Luc Bérille.

Thierry Beaudet began to gather together on his candidacy very early on.

"He did something quite original, he invited all the groups to work for several months on several themes (...) on the future Cese project," says Mohammed Oussedik, CGT representative at Cese.

In his speech Tuesday, Mr. Beaudet recalled that the role of Cese was "consultative", but estimated that its "place in public decision (should) be amplified".

"We must be (...) the assembly of essential reconciliations", he affirmed in the hemicycle of the palace of Jena.

While the law of January 15, 2021 reformed the Cese by making it the "chamber of citizens' conventions", Mr. Beaudet considered it necessary to "bring about (...) a mixed and continuous democracy that balances representative and participatory forms , direct and indirect interventions ".

"Discreet", Mr. Beaudet "is neither afraid of the light nor afraid of getting involved", assures the boss of Unsa, Laurent Escure.

He was able to adopt strong positions, such as on euthanasia, of which he is an open supporter.

It remains to be seen if this will be enough to bring the Cese out of the shadows.

"This third chamber does not have institutional prerogatives strong enough to be able to assert itself (...). It only has the quality of the work it can produce", notes Mr. Oussedik, who hopes that the work of the Cese will in future be better taken into account by the executive and the Parliament.

© 2021 AFP