New meeting between the executive, employers and unions. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne invited the social partners to Matignon via a letter sent this Thursday morning, learned Le Figaro from several sources, confirming information from BFMTV. The meeting will take place on Wednesday July 12, at 10 a.m., a few days before the national holiday. A few days, too, before the deadline set by Emmanuel Macron for the “hundred days” aimed at relaunching the five-year term after the pension crisis.
No agenda has been set in advance, so each organization will be able to come with its own themes to this multilateral meeting. Objective: to take stock of the “social agenda” topics to work on for the next few weeks. The five representative trade union organizations – the CGT, the CFDT, FO, the CGC and the CFTC – were invited, as well as three employers’ organisations: the Medef, the CPME and the U2P.
This new meeting had been requested for several weeks by the inter-union, recalls Force Ouvrière, confirming that it had received an invitation from the boss of the majority. “It had been asked more than once”, at the time when the protest in the street reached its climax, we underline. The central will go to the meeting, without however deciding for the other organizations. “But there should be no problem” for everyone to grab their outstretched hand, adds this representative. Medef should also respond.
For the government, this meeting will be an opportunity to renew the dialogue with the social partners, burned by the social crisis which led several million French people to the streets from January. The last official exchanges date from mid-May, a time of “appeasement” having been left to the organizations so that they build a “social agenda” together. If they recently reached an agreement, this time was also regretted by unions: invited on BFMTV, at the end of June, the new boss of the CFDT, Marylise Léon, was thus surprised not to have received any message of Emmanuel Macron since his arrival at the head of the reformist central. “No sound, no image, zero contact since I took over as head of the CFDT”, she regretted, while relations between the head of state and Laurent Berger were icy.
The unions should once again take advantage of this opportunity to reiterate their opposition to the pension reform. Other subjects should be put on the table, such as employment in general or salaries. Themes that the organizations wish to bring together: “The inter-union that we have built since July 2022 is a strength. […] This force will be able to mobilize in the coming months to claim social progress and to confront the policies of social regression at the national level, ”indicated the centrals in their last joint press release, mid-June. And to warn: “We are not turning the page” on pensions.