“Emmanuel Macron acts as if the social movement does not exist”, after his proposal to meet the unions, believes the CFE-CGC

“Emmanuel Macron as if the social movement did not exist”said Wednesday April 12 on franceinfo François Hommeril, president of the CFE-CGC, after the call for“spirit of harmony” launched by the President of the Republic. The Head of State from the Netherlands wanted to project himself beyond the long-awaited decisions of the Constitutional Council on Friday on pension reform, promising the unions a “exchange which will make it possible to initiate the continuation and to take into account” of the verdict of the Sages. It will be difficult to do “as if the arguments we brought to the debate did not exist, as if the majority of the population did not reject his reform, as if we had not demonstrated that it was unjustified”asserts the CFE-CGC.

franceinfo: Do ​​you have the feeling that Emmanuel Macron is making fun of you?

Francois Hommeril: Yes, indeed I have this feeling a little. We ourselves proposed this meeting and it was an effort to do so at the level of the inter-union. I observe one thing, it is that each time the President of the Republic speaks on the eve of a mobilization it is generally a very strong mobilization that we have the next day, it has been the case on March 7 the day after his declaration at the Agricultural Show and this was the case on March 23 after his intervention the day before at 1 p.m.

Do you still want to meet him?

The question is not really the desire. I have a union mandate and I have to respect it and respect the institutions. If the President of the Republic asks me to come to the Élysée to discuss it is not in the tradition of the CFE-CGC to make the empty chair. But for the rest, we are going to have a problem, because Emmanuel Macron has acted for three months as if the social movement did not exist, as if the arguments we brought to the debate did not exist, as if the majority of the population did not reject his reform, as if we had not demonstrated that it was unjustified. It’s going to be hard to pretend like nothing happened. It is complicated to develop relations of harmony in these conditions.

>> Pension reform: who are the nine Elders of the Constitutional Council who will decide on the law?

What do you expect from the Constitutional Council on Friday?

I expect the Constitutional Council to censure the law in its entirety. I am not naive. I think it’s likely that he will aim a bit in the middle. It is possible that certain articles, which may have been put there for that, will be reformed and that the executive will communicate to say that the essentials of the law are preserved. We, we made the analysis in law that this law should not be promulgated because its legislative course in the National Assembly was not in conformity with its content.