Macron - Shepherd, ten years between distance and mistrust

Several ministers are still scratching their heads: was it really wise for Emmanuel Macron to scratch the boss of the CFDT on Wednesday, saying in particular that he had not proposed any "compromise"? What's more, at the turn of an interview supposed to calm the social conflict over the pension reform?

A "small cleat", "not essential", agrees a government heavyweight. With Mr. Berger, "I do not know if they hate each other" but "there is a complicated thing", blows another, anxious to pick up the pieces with the unionist.

The boss of the senators of the majority François Patriat sums up the nervousness at the top: "Berger has not been reglo," he squeaks, saying that the confederal leader "was well convinced" of the need to raise the retirement age.

After railing against the president's "denial and lies", Mr. Berger has reduced the tension by proposing a "pause" of six months in the reform. If Mr. Macron refused, he took care to emphasize Friday the "spirit of responsibility" and the "desire for appeasement" of the unionist.

This new rise in temperature between the two men is only the logical continuation of a ten-year relationship, degraded with the accession of Emmanuel Macron to the Elysee in 2017.

'Perverse operation'

Laurent Berger, elected in 2012 at the head of the CFDT, first met Emmanuel Macron the same year. The latter was then working on the presidential campaign of François Hollande before becoming a close collaborator, then his Minister of the Economy.

Poverty plan in 2013, opening of work on Sundays in 2015, or El Khomri law in 2016 see Mr. Macron and Mr. Berger negotiate foot by foot.

At that time, the future president leaked to the press his good understanding with the trade unionist, even if it annoyed the latter. It was also at this time that Mr. Macron, who lost some arbitrations with François Hollande, forged the conviction of a distancing of the social partners.

"I think he sees the unions from the beginning as a factor of archaism and immobility," said Pierre Ferracci, head of the Alpha consulting group and a connoisseur of social issues.

Mr. Macron exposes this vision to the CFDT during his campaign, in March 2017: in a video, he denounces a "perverse operation" and recalls that it is not "the role" of the unions to "participate in the manufacture of the law". The participants come out flabbergasted. "We knew, at that time, that we would have great difficulties on the role of trade unions, the day he came to power," rewinds Laurent Berger.

The CFDT, France's leading trade union, with a reformist tendency, is an essential interlocutor in social dialogue. But the climate deteriorated with the executive from the summer of 2017 and the adoption of work ordinances.

Presidential anger rumbled in return against Mr. Berger when he co-signed in January 2018 a vitriolic tribune against the asylum-immigration law, accusing Mr. Macron, who learned of it in the middle of a trip to Calais, of lacking "humanity".

"No personal problem"

At the beginning of the yellow vest crisis at the end of 2018, consternation was total when, to Mr. Berger's proposal to convene a social conference, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe opposed an awkward end of rejection.

And resentment is rising in December 2019, already in the midst of pension reform. Mr. Berger, favorable to Emmanuel Macron's project of a universal system by points, sees one of his red lines crossed: the establishment of a pivotal age. The executive loses its main partner and the majority is even divided around the attitude to adopt towards Mr Berger.

At the same time, Macron looks with suspicion at the "Pact of the Power to Live" launched by Mr. Berger with other trade unions and associations. Would the trade unionist have political ambitions? Could it capture a social democratic space in dormancy? This one applies to deny at length of interviews.

Mr. Macron and Mr. Berger see each other little, despite the punctual efforts of part of the presidential entourage. The trade unionist, who likes to "compartmentalize", assures him: "there is no personal problem between him and me, because we do not have a personal relationship".

The boss of the CFDT, who is preparing to pass the hand, clings to an open line, as illustrated by his participation in the "National Council of the refoundation", a body wanted by Emmanuel Macron but largely boycotted by the political and union forces.

"The idea that it is Berger's anger that inspires his attitude, you don't have to know anything about the unions to think such a thing," abounds political scientist Jean-Marie Pernot.

© 2023 AFP