You have been called everything and its opposite. The main opponent of Emmanuel Macron and his ally. The man who can save the desnortada social democracy the French and the living example of the desolation of this ideology. The trade unionist that the French Government needs to save the pension reform and a figure dispensable to an Executive willing to impose their plans with or without the consent of the unions.
Laurent Berger (Guérande, 51 years), son of trade unionists, and secretary-general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), is the man of the moment in France. Depending on the outcome of the negotiation on the reform, the dialogue and Berger can establish itself as the counterweight to Macron in the center-left, or fall into irrelevance and be threatened by the more radical General Confederation of Labour (CGT), of the combative Philippe Martinez.
the Whole raison d’être of a trade union reformist as the CFDT, which is anchored in the tradition socialcristiana and alien to revolutionary marxism, consists in being able to influence without breaking the deck. “We have an address nuanced in a country, I know, that you don’t like the shade,” said Berger to THE COUNTRY in 2018.
Berger maintains a prudent distance before the mobilizations that began on the 5th of December. The union he leads, the first of France from that in 2018 exceeded the CGT, supported the principle of the controversial reform. The proposal to simplify the current system, with 42 pension schemes different, and merge them into one to make it more clear and equitable, is in fact an old idea of the CFDT. And until here, no problem. The CFDT did not participate in the demonstrations.
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But that all changed on the 11th of December, when the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, announced the details of the reform, and proposed to set in the 64 years the age to retire with full pension. In France the legal age is 62 years. Those 64 years ago were a “red line” for Berger. In your opinion, supposed to mix the melting of the 42 regimes into a single one with measures to lengthen working lives and balance the accounts.
The reasons for Philippe to offend Berger are multiple. There is one accounting: the conviction that no reform can be launched if there is no way to finance it and that, if the French do not work during more time, there will be no way to pay the pensions for all. And there is another reason tactical: when you set the 64 years as retirement age, has bounded around a figure on the ground of the negotiation. The third reason is ideological: the 64-year —or, in general, come closer to european standards in the age of retirement— like the moderate right which is attached to Philippe and that, with Macron, wants to conquer with the upcoming elections. In this scenario, the leader of the CFDT it is more of a liability than a potential ally.
Berger is facing, therefore, a double problem. A part of its rules are unsettled by what they consider to be an excessive indulgence with the president Macron. It is significant that CFDT-Cheminots, the branch railway from the union, is added, from the first moment to strike, unlike the rest of the union. Is more, the prime minister Philippe knows that, even if were to accept the claims of Berger, the CGT union, a leader in the railways, to maintain the strike, because only you will be satisfied with a total withdrawal of the project.
No match
Another problem for this trade union leader is that you do not have a match in the rest. If you would get the concessions they are seeking, who would defend the amendments in the National Assembly, where the left is divided, and without force to the roller macronista? Its position, in the tradition of the so-called “second left”, is too moderate for the majority of parties of the French left and too left for the macronismo.
on December 17, the CFDT, joined the third day of national demonstrations after each absence from the first two. But that day, offered a picture melancholy: a few thousands of trade unionists, with their distinctive orange to the tail of the march as if they were isolated from the rest. Berger was there in half hour and then departed.
rail Traffic and the metro to be very small Christmas
The French have resigned themselves to live a Christmas atypical, disrupted by the strike of transport which began on 5 December and Tuesday 24th will continue for twenty consecutive day. That day will two out of every five high-speed trains, one of every five suburban trains in the Paris region and one of ten regional trains in France, according to the public company of railways (SNCF). In Paris and its periphery, the company of parisian transports (RATP) will close on Tuesday, six metro lines and only work with the normal two automated lines, the 1 and the 14. Wednesday, Christmas day, stop all the metro lines unless the automatic and the train, reports agence France Presse.
The bargaining has been suspended until early January, after two rounds of talks on Wednesday and Thursday past. The Government’s concessions led to the minority union UNSA to hang out of the strike at the SNCF. The CGT and other unions called a new day of demonstrations and strikes to the 9 of January, the reformist CFDT, who had asked for a truce of christmas, it has not been added by now.
