“The debate with the country on the inevitable rebalancing of the pension system has not taken place, that is the source of all the difficulties. In an interview with the JDD on Saturday April 29, François Bayrou criticized the government's strategy on pension reform.
For the former Minister of Justice, the debate has not focused enough "on the inevitable rebalancing of the system". The boss of the Modem therefore regrets "not being able to understand why we accepted without reacting that we accredit in the minds of the French the idea that our pension system was today balanced".
Faced with "the joke" of the discourse of the oppositions who dispute the need for refinancing the system - according to him "misguided minds" - the historical ally of Emmanuel Macron deplores in particular that "the government has not presented to the French” the “National Accounts Figures”: “Why? To spare the social partners? For the sake of reassuring Brussels? Or out of conformity of thought,” he wonders.
"It's our very conception of democracy that is at stake," continues the unsuccessful three-time presidential candidate, castigating the idea of "believing that once elected, it is the leaders who decide for themselves, and that the base will have to follow, obey or resign to a decision made above them".
"No major reform can be carried out if we have not carried the requirement for total information and shared awareness", argues François Bayrou, believing that "fractures, resistance and reluctance" come "when the organization of power is reduced to a confrontation between a 'top' which does not say who it is and what it wants and a base which is only asked to obey".
However, according to him, "the mechanisms of control of power from above, the eternal return of the same elements of language, of the same technocratic reflexes have hindered the mission of reinventing the relationship between the base and the so-called top".
On the merits, the High Commissioner for Planning believes that "a much more comprehensive plan to return to equilibrium over ten or twelve years would have been needed, with efforts required not only from employees, but also from other categories. of the population", expressing his "suffering" that the "reformists" - targeting on the one hand the CFDT, CFTC, CGC and "large sections of FO", on the other hand the executive - "n' fail to find the methods of working together".
"There are responsibilities on both sides", he judges, pointing to the "stiff approach" of the CFDT "and, on the side of the executive, the fear of being 'sucked' after having made concessions ".
