Pensions: "The government has allowed itself to be trapped," says François Bayrou

Mayalène Tremolet with AFP / Photo credit: THOMAS SAMSON / AFP 13:28 pm, April 30, 2023

François Bayrou said that "nothing has been clearly explained" in the pension reform, the government having according to him "let itself be caught in a trap", failing to have carried "the debate on the inevitable rebalancing of the system", in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche.

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"The debate with the country, the inevitable rebalancing of the pension system has not taken place, there is the source of all the difficulties," considers the boss of the MoDem, explaining "not being able to understand why we accepted without reacting that we accredit in the minds of the French the idea that our pension system was balanced today."

"It is our very conception of democracy that is at stake"

Faced with the "joke" of the discourse of the oppositions who contest the need for a refinancing of the system - according to him "misguided minds" -, the historical ally of Emmanuel Macron deplores in particular that "the government has not presented to the French" the "figures of the national accounts": "Why? To spare the social partners? For the sake of reassuring Brussels? Or by conformity of thought?"

"It is our very conception of democracy that is at stake," continues the unfortunate triple presidential candidate, castigating the idea of "believing that once elected, it is the leaders who decide alone, and that the base will have to follow, obey or resign itself to a decision taken above it."

"No major reform can be carried out if we have not carried out the demand for total information and shared awareness," argues François Bayrou, believing that "fractures, resistance and reluctance" come "when the organization of power is reduced to a confrontation between a summit that does not say who it is and what it wants and a base that we only ask to obey."

It would have "needed a much more complete plan to return to balance over ten or twelve years," says François Bayrou.

However, according to him, "the mechanisms of control of power from above, the eternal return of the same elements of language, the same technocratic reflexes have hindered the mission of reinventing the relationship between the base and the so-called summit".

On the substance, the High Commissioner for Planning considers that "it would have been necessary a much more complete plan to return to balance over ten or twelve years, with efforts required not only from employees, but also from other categories of the population", expressing his "suffering" than the "reformists" - targeting on the one hand the CFDT, CFTC, CGC and "large swathes of FO", on the other hand the executive - "cannot find the methods of working together".

"There are responsibilities on both sides," he said, pointing to the "steep approach" of the CFDT "and, on the side of the executive, the fear of being 'brooded' after making concessions."