Laurent Berger-Philippe Martinez: who is your favorite trade unionist?

And one more ! Laurent Berger, of the CFDT, and Philippe Martinez, of the CGT, meet this Tuesday, March 7 for the sixth time in less than a month and a half to demonstrate against the pension reform defended by the government and currently under debate in the Senate

Laurent Berger-Philippe Martinez: who is your favorite trade unionist?

And one more ! Laurent Berger, of the CFDT, and Philippe Martinez, of the CGT, meet this Tuesday, March 7 for the sixth time in less than a month and a half to demonstrate against the pension reform defended by the government and currently under debate in the Senate.

An unexpected duo: the first claiming to be reformist, while the second has a revolutionary tendency. Until now, they were rarely on the same wavelength. Le Point, with the polling institute Cluster17*, wanted to question the French to measure their respective popularity ratings. Who likes the most? And to whom?

Let's start with Laurent Berger, who leads the largest union in France with 640,000 members. According to the Cluster17 survey, 48% of French people questioned say they have a good opinion of the CFDT leader, 23% a bad opinion and 29% say they don't know him enough. Positive opinions of both the reformist organization and its leader are fairly evenly distributed across the electoral spectrum.

The voters of Yannick Jadot, Anne Hidalgo and Fabien Roussel, more than 70%, particularly appreciate the Nazairien. Those who voted for Valérie Pécresse, up to 58%, or for Emmanuel Macron (51%) also have a good opinion. As for the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, they are 51%.

In detail, the group surveyed say "multiculturalists" - left-wing, young, mobilized, city dweller, whose sociology is very similar to that of the participants in the "Nuit Debout" movement - is not very enthusiastic about the person (48% of bad opinion).

What will Laurent Berger do after his departure from the CFDT, his mandate ending in 2026? Some already imagine him as a presidential candidate in 2027. However, the French interviewed by Cluster17 do not seem ready to throw him into the big political bath. Only 11% of those questioned believe that he would make "a good candidate" in the presidential election, a score which rises to 26% and 29% among voters of Anne Hidalgo and Yannick Jadot.

In detail, the three groups that voted the most for Jean-Luc Mélenchon are also the three that appreciate Philippe Martinez the most. It thus totals between 54% and 78% of support among the "solidarity", the "multiculturalists" and the "rebellious", strongly opposed to the pension reform and more generally to all the economic reforms carried out by the President of the Republic. It should be noted that Martinez is appreciated by a substantial part of the popular "lepenist" electorate, coming from the "France of the roundabouts".

Thus, 49% of "refractory" and 47% of "eurosceptics", two groups composed mostly of workers and employees who vote mainly RN, say they have a good opinion of Philippe Martinez. In short, Philippe Martinez is appreciated by a plural protest arc that mixes the sociology of the "Nuit Debout" movement and a sociology closer to the "France of the Yellow Vests".

Between them, Laurent Berger and Philippe Martinez seduce a large spectrum of the population, in a context favorable to unions and the social movement.

* Study carried out by Cluster17 for "Le Point" with a sample of 1,874 people representative of the French population aged 18 and over via self-administered online questionnaire on March 3 and 4, 2023.

Consult our file: Pensions: the big bang