An impossible reform?

"The English have Ireland, the Americans have weapons. We have the pensions", slipped recently to AFP, fatalistic, Edouard Philippe.

The former Prime Minister himself suffered demonstrations against his points project, which was finally abandoned due to Covid.

But Emmanuel Macron remains determined: "this year will be that of a pension reform" applied "from the end of the summer", he hammered Saturday during his wishes to the French.

The postponement of her presentation from December 15 to January 10 certainly allowed the head of government to hear again, before Christmas, the political groups and then, this week, the social partners.

All the unions and most of the opposition contest the executive's plan to gradually postpone the retirement age from 62 to 65, or to 64 with an extension of the contribution period.

Emmanuel Macron spoke on Saturday of an "extension (of) progressive work careers" over "nearly ten years".

The reform will take into account "long careers, choppy careers, the difficulty of certain tasks", it will "balance the financing" of the system and "improve the minimum pension", he argued.

- Unfavorable French -

So many arguments that the Prime Minister should repeat Tuesday morning on FranceInfo, taking the French to witness failing to obtain the approval of trade union or even political organizations.

A demonstrator holds a sign that reads "Better to strike than a miserable pension" during a demonstration in Paris, October 18, 2022 © Bertrand GUAY / AFP

The executive hopes at least, thanks to the measures on the arduousness, an "absence of frontal opposition" of the CFDT, underlines an adviser.

But some 54% of French people are against this reform, according to a Harris-Interactive poll carried out at the end of December and published on Monday.

"There are only retirees, those aged 65 and over, who declare themselves in favor", notes Frédéric Dabi, director of the Ifop institute.

Elisabeth Borne nevertheless hopes to rally Les Républicains, in favor of postponing the age.

To this end, it must review their president Eric Ciotti.

Without LR, the government, which only has a relative majority, would be forced to use Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of a text without a vote.

For the first time in 12 years and the Woerth reform (which had raised the legal age from 60 to 62), all the unions are ready to mobilize together against the announced reform.

Including the CFDT, on a firmer line since its last congress against any "age measure".

Ms. Borne will find it difficult to appease her boss Laurent Berger, who expressed his anger when he discovered just before Christmas, in the draft decree reforming unemployment insurance, "an even harsher provision for the unemployed without it being was discussed in the consultation".

- "In the street" -

It is through mobilization "in the street" that it will be possible to "roll back" the pension reform, warned Monday the new boss of Europe-Ecology-The Greens, Marine Tondelier.

Protesters march behind a banner that reads "For our wages, for our pensions, for the right to strike" during a demonstration in Toulouse, southwestern France, October 18, 2022 © Valentine CHAPUIS /AFP

"It's going to heat up in January," predicted the founder of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Saturday.

Frédéric Dabi still sees "a context of + vests-yellowing +" of French society, with "work that pays poorly", a "feeling of decline" and "inflation that did not exist in 2018".

"The seeds of a social explosion are there" and a "spark could ignite everything", he warns.

Reforming pensions in France "is always very complicated", moreover in a climate "marked by strong tensions on purchasing power" and wages, underlines Jérôme Fourquet, Opinion director at Ifop.

An exercise all the more delicate at a time when the government presents other disputed texts, in particular on immigration and renewable energies.

But, for Jérôme Fourquet, a pension reform, "it is also pledges given to our European partners" to "negotiate a + form of whatever it costs +".

Brice Teinturier, of the Ipsos institute, remains cautious on the extent of the mobilization because the context "is not very favorable to collective dynamics".

© 2023 AFP