Incognito. This is the word that seems to best define the first meeting of the President of the Republic with the new leaders of the largest social organizations in France. In turn, Patrick Martin for the Medef, Sophie Binet for the CGT and Marylise Léon for the CFDT, will be, or have been received by Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée.
After the boss of bosses last week, it is therefore the turn of the general secretary of the Montreuil plant to meet for the first time face to face with the Head of State this Tuesday, August 29. If the meeting is presented as a contact and is not intended to move forward on certain specific issues, Sophie Binet did not hesitate to be vindictive at the microphone of France Inter the same morning. “I am going to tell him that he must come down from his ivory tower, that I hear with interest talk of a referendum and that the first subject on which a referendum must be organized is the pension reform”, a- she warned.
The number one of the radical union also wants to put the question of “union repression” on the table, while one of the confederal secretaries of the CGT, Sébastien Menesplier, was summoned as a “legal person” by the gendarmerie for the September 6. According to a leader of the CGT, this follows a power cut on March 8, at the height of the protest against the pension reform, in Annonay (Ardèche), stronghold of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, and who had deprived several thousand households with electricity.
To finish cooling the atmosphere, the meeting is held a few days after the announcement by the inter-union of a new day of mobilization on October 13. The watchword is no longer pensions but wage increases. A question that the number of the CFDT, which must be received next week, intends to address with Emmanuel Macron, we announce on the side of the central reformist.
The relative discretion of the Guests and the Élysée on these meetings contrasts with the tone of the long sequence on the pension reform. For weeks, the various members of the inter-union had asked the head of state to receive them. A request to which the principal concerned had answered in the negative, leaving, in appearance at least, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to manage the file.
These discussions also do not take place within the great initiative that Emmanuel Macron is leading this return to school. This remains confined to the presidents of the political parties represented in Parliament, who are invited to a meeting this Wednesday, August 30. The objective is to enable everyone to address the subjects that are close to their hearts and to find “useful agreements for France”, taking the form of “immediate decisions”, “drafts and legislative proposals” and even “draft referendums”, in the words of the Head of State.