After the CGT, it is the turn of the CFDT to pass the torch. Laurent Berger announced this Wednesday his departure, scheduled for June 21, after eleven years at the head of the CFDT. He should be replaced by his number two, Marylise Léon. In the columns of Le Monde, Laurent Berger describes it as “dynamic”, with an “understanding of the world of work which is strong, sometimes finer than [his], for example on the question of new forms of employment”. “She fought vigorously during the unemployment insurance negotiations and she is convinced that the ecological transition must be done in a socially just way. She is appreciated within the house, she is close to people, human,” he continues.
And for good reason, it has been 18 years since Marylise Léon joined the ranks of the CFDT. This original Mancelle studied in a high school in Sarthe, before continuing her studies at the faculty of Angers and completing her university course in Créteil in Val-de-Marne. In the 2000s, she landed her first job in a motorway company and specialized in pollution control issues, according to an interview given in 2019 to the Telegram. Marylise Léon then became a staff representative in a consulting company with seven employees.
Two years after the drama of the AZF accident in Toulouse, which occurred in 2003, she is hired by the CFDT chemistry-energy to “help activists to contribute to the prevention of risks through their work, for example by verifying that the reality is as expected on paper. The 47-year-old union official, avowed feminist and mother of two children, is amused that it is “after their birth that we [have] made interesting proposals”. She rose through the ranks one by one, becoming Confederal National Secretary from June 2014 to June 2018 and focused on sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, industrial and energy policy, social dialogue and representativeness.
In 2018, she became Deputy Secretary General alongside Laurent Berger before being re-elected in 2022. “A good trade unionist is not necessarily someone easy, especially in negotiations”, she underlined in 2019 Today, Marylise Léon is a choice of continuity, according to Sébastien Mariani, Deputy Secretary General of the Transport and Environment Federation of the CFDT and the railway branch. The latter recognizes in the future leader of the CFDT qualities of listening, proximity to the field and flexibility in positions despite her tenacious commitment.
“It’s the best solution we could imagine for this transition and I have no doubt that Marylise will live up to the responsibilities granted to her,” says Sébastien Mariani. On the side of the employers, we also recognize the quality of the exchanges with the quarantine. “It’s not trench warfare with her,” says CPME vice-president Éric Chevée. “She is very much in tune with the image of the CFDT. She is a trade unionist of compromise and not of compromise, ”he adds.
When she is not devoting herself to social struggles, Marylise Léon enjoys running, paragliding and knitting. She is also passionate about street-art and superheroes, starting with… Wonder Woman. In the columns of Syndicalisme Hebdo, Marylise Léon has already called for a “historic” mobilization on May 1 to protest against the government’s pension reform, taking up Laurent Berger’s controversial expression: “break the shack”. “In this context, there is no doubt that the social resentment born of the deafness of the executive in the face of peaceful union mobilization, and on a scale not seen for decades, will continue,” she said on Tuesday. May 1 will therefore be a decisive day, both for the demonstrators but also for the representativeness of the CFDT.
