EDITORIAL. He kept unions at arm's length since taking office at the Élysée in 2017: facing strong social mobilization, Emmanuel Macron rediscovers their utility

It is undoubtedly Laurent Nunez who best summed up the day of mobilization that lies ahead: a “sensitive” day. He of course speaks from the point of view of law enforcement and promises a “robust” police system. It is also a particularly “sensitive day for the entire executive.

A call for a general strike for wages is never trivial. Demonstrations where we expect up to 700,000 people outside Paris and up to 80.

000 demonstrators in the capital is not insignificant either, especially when they bring together private, public and retired employees but also high school and university students who have been mobilized for weeks. But a call for a general strike in such an eruptive context, 164 days before the first round of the presidential election, deserves to be monitored very closely. Even if, after three consecutive Saturdays of mobilization against the high cost of living, espousing the codes of the yellow vests, we are returning to a more classic inter-union protest and therefore better secured by the organizations themselves.

Proof that the executive takes the subject very seriously, it will respond quickly, very quickly to the demonstrators. And this is a first since the start of Emmanuel Macron's second five-year term, marked by the Borne pension reform contested, as we remember, in the streets. The Lecornu government finally suspended it, but only to avoid censorship from socialist deputies.

Social shock absorbers Jean-Pierre Farandou, Minister of Social Affairs assured the Assembly on Tuesday, he will make announcements quickly to respond to demands on wages. In particular, there is talk of an increase in the minimum wage and minimum wages in sectors paid below the minimum wage. The CFDT will listen carefully to these proposals, while the first French union is now demanding an increase of 100 euros net in the minimum wage.

As we can see, we are witnessing the beginnings of a return to old-fashioned social dialogue. The great return of intermediate bodies can only be good news. In this ultra-tense climate even if, obviously, it is quite a turnaround on the part of Emmanuel Macron.

Remember, the President of the Republic began his first five-year term by keeping at bay the unions that he wanted to confine to branch negotiations. He wanted to turn the page on co-management with the CFDT that he had observed when François Hollande was at the Élysée. Even if it means depriving yourself of precious social shock absorbers.

François Bayrou turned to them again during the conclave on pensions… in vain. This return to the unions, if it succeeds in stopping social protest, would close a cycle, that of a macronism which had moved away from the shores of social democracy, only to be forced to return there, almost ten years later. Rediscovering that in the expression social partners, there are “partners”.

Machine-translated from French