Macron invites employers and unions to a new social pact before the end of the year

President Emmanuel Macron called on Tuesday for employers and unions to start a dialogue to achieve “before the end of the year”. a new social pact in France. With this initiative, he seeks to turn the page on the pension reform, which progressively raises the retirement age from the current 62 to 64, and restart the presidential mandate after three months of protests in the country and an open social crisis.

Your goal is to achieve a “Pact on life at work built through social dialogue” And so he conveyed it to the employers at the meeting they held this Tuesday in the Elysee Hall. The unions have already announced that they will not come to the meeting, after the president announced the controversial pension reform at dawn last Saturday.

Macron wants “in the coming weeks or in the coming months” to determine the full agenda of the negotiations so that the Government, employers and central offices can reach a new social pact between now and the end of the year. “If the trade unions and employers’ organizations are ready to go faster, we are fully available,” said the head of state, adding that it is a matter of negotiations “without restrictions and without taboos”.

The Elysian Gate, he said, is “open” to trade unions. The president wants that after the celebration of May 1, International Labor Day, “trade union organizations that want to” participate in the development of the social agenda. The central women have already made it clear that they do not want to meet with the government before that day, which is why they have called for protests across the country, trying to convince the president to maintain their strength.

No, no union

Geoffroy Roux de Beziux, the president of Medef (the association of French employers), is not willing to sit down at the negotiating table without a union. «The agenda is made until three. In other words, since the unions were not here, we have to get in touch with them,” he said. “An empty chair is not a long-term policy,” said the business leader, who is being negotiated “as long as necessary.” “The state benefits when employers and unions sign agreements,” he concluded.

trade union leader Cyril Chabanier considers that “the problem is the dialogue with the Executive Power Elisabeth Borne, not between social partners’. “The social dialogue between employers and unions has never been interrupted,” the president of the French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC) explained to BFMTV, willing to show the government that “the fight continues” against the pension reform and that the unions do not give up.

“We will return to the negotiating table, since Emmanuel Macron has been elected for another four years [su mandato termina en el 2027] and we cannot go another four years without proposing progress for workers and our fellow citizens. But we won’t go to the table [de negociaciones] play extras“, he warned.