Macron offers unions to meet next week to ease tensions

The Government of Emmanuel Macron has proposed to the unions to set a meeting next week to ease tensions on the street and predictably expose their respective positions on the pension reform, which raises the minimum retirement age to 64.

The prime minister, Elisabeth Bornehas summoned the unions via email on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week and “no agenda has been set”, as confirmed by the French channel BFMTV.

“We will talk about pensions, it is something more than evident and important for us”, said this Wednesday the leader of the first union in the country, laurent bergerin an interview with the radio station French Info.

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In this meeting with the Government, the unions will put on the table their proposal to seek mediation and request that the main measure of the reform already adopted be suspended, the two-year delay in the minimum retirement age.

If there is no talk of pensions, they will rise

Berger has stated that he will go to “explain why this reform is a dead end (…) and why we must find a way out” of the social crisis, and warned that if the prime minister does not let them discuss This question they will get up from the table and leave.

Everything indicates that this meeting will not be fruitful, since the government spokesman, Olivier Veran, It has already rejected the proposal for mediation with the unions, arguing that both parties do not need a mediator to speak.

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He has also rejected the idea of ​​reopening discussions on the reform because it has already been adopted and its validation by the Constitutional Council is only expected in the coming weeks.

This same opinion is shared by the Minister of Transport, Clement Beaunewho is against the pension reform law being discussed at next week’s meeting because “Parliament has already voted for it.”

Praise to Spain

Parallel to this meeting, andhe leader of the first union in France, CFDT, Laurent Berger, considers that Spain is “a model” due to the government’s willingness to negotiate with the trade unions.

“There is a true willingness of the Spanish Government to dialogue with the trade unions”, he stated.

The CFDT is a union with a reformist tradition, normally involved in social negotiations with governments and employers’ organizations, with a different sensibility from that of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, the second central in the country), more prone to clashes and to conflicts in the form of strikes.