New round of discussions for the Prime Minister with a view to building the rest of the five-year term. This week, Élisabeth Borne is meeting with employers’ representatives in Matignon. Accompanied by the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, she will first receive the boss of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, this Monday at 5.30 p.m., followed by his counterpart from the CPME, François Asselin, at 6.45 p.m. On Tuesday, she will close these exchanges with the vice-president of the Union of local businesses (U2P), Jean-Christophe Repon, at 7 p.m.
Among the topics discussed should include “the employment of seniors” and “the economy”, indicated Friday the boss of the big bosses, on Europe 1. “The impact of interest rates is starting to bite on the margins of companies [ …], there are still a number of areas of concern” for employers, noted Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux. The Medef representative, however, felt that the companies “did the job”, on the issue of wages, brandished by the workers’ representatives.
These bilateral interviews take place a few days after other, similar ones, with the five employee representative bodies. Elisabeth Borne had received, Tuesday May 16 and Wednesday May 17, the bosses of Force Ouvrière, the CFDT, the CFE-CGC, the CFTC then the CGT. Objective of these successive meetings: “Develop the social agenda in order to build a new pact for life at work”. The majority also hoped to re-establish links with the trade unions, scalded by the sequence on the pension reform.
During the presentation of her roadmap at the end of April, Elisabeth Borne indicated that she wanted to build a “pact for life at work” with the social partners, by July 14. The results of this first round of exchanges with the unions are however mixed, the representatives of the employees remaining on their guard: the central Montreuil thus quickly denounced an “employer monologue”, again calling on the employees to mobilize on June 6 next against the pension reform. “We got the ball rolling but we didn’t dance,” commented Frédéric Souillot, head of FO, mischievously.
Same observation for Laurent Berger: “If the game is open to obtain social progress, we will play it hard. But if not …”, warned the leader of the CFDT, in an interview with the Sunday newspaper. His organization will, however, participate following the exchanges, wishing to “use the strength of the social movement to obtain progress for the workers”.