Opposed to the pension reform, Laurent Berger on Tuesday called on the executive to set up a "mediation" to "find a way out" of the social crisis, a request that will be the subject of a letter from the inter-union to the President of the Republic.

Present at the start of the Paris demonstration, the union leader reacted strongly to this refusal of the government.

"It will begin to suffice the purposes of non-reception for discussion and dialogue (...) It is unbearable that the answer is an end of non-receiving," he said. The government's response is "an arm of honor," PS First Secretary Oliver Faure also said.

But the MPs of the MoDem, one of the components of the majority with Renaissance and Horizons, have also distanced themselves from the government's position.

"It's good to have one or two people to try to find dialogue and have a certain distance," said the president of the centrist group Jean-Paul Mattei, during a press briefing at the National Assembly.

"A mediator does not interfere in the background, he is there to find binding and get to talk to each other, that's what's important. We need someone who is not directly involved" in the reform, insisted this close to François Bayrou.

On France Inter Tuesday morning, Laurent Berger proposed to "take a month, a month and a half, to ask one, two, three people to mediate", and he called for a "gesture of appeasement to find a way out".

But "if we go on a break of a month and a half and mediation, in the end we do not pass the reform," assured a government source to AFP.

"The President of the Republic has said it: he is ready to receive the inter-union since, because we respect our institutions, the Constitutional Council will have pronounced on the conformity of our text of law," detailed Mr. Veran, not before the end of April.

Government spokesman Olivier Véran speaks during the report of the Council of Ministers on March 28, 2023 in Paris © Ludovic MARIN / AFP

"Then, the prime minister is at the disposal of the unions to receive them very directly, to be able to speak," he added.

The government spokesman also recalled the other possible topics of discussion with the unions "to advance workers' rights": "distribution of value within the company", "the end of career", "low wages below the SMIC".

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© 2023 AFP