In the midst of the fight against pension reform, the leader of France’s first workers union has resigned

When the battle against the pension reform promulgated by Emanuel Macron, the trade unionist who leads it, continues it goes and gives way to a woman, in an evolution of the French trade union movement.

After this long struggle, Laurent Bergerthe general secretary of the CFDT, the first workers’ union in France and of moderate social democratic orientation, has announced that he will leave his post. From 21 June he will be replaced by Marylise Léon, current number two of the confederation.

Secretary General of the CFDT since November 2012, Laurent Berger announced on Wednesday April 19 at the national headquarters of his organization that will relinquish this responsibility. Leon will succeed him.

In an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, he said that the trade unionism is “winning” to the opposition movement to the pension reform.

“I I’m not essential in the CFDT,” Berger told Le Monde at the time of the announcement.

Berger is a prestigious trade unionist, moderate, a good interlocutor of the MEDEF, which brings together the captains of the sector, with the president Emmanuel Macron they do not speak, not even in this tough context of negotiations with reforms.

The two leaders met under the five-year mandate of François Hollande, and from there the dimensions of their dispute begin.

In the eyes of the trade unionist, Emmanuel Macron will forever embody the liberal drift that has derailed the last five years of the left. Together with Manuel Valls, the then economy minister, he supported the relaxation of the labor code, which would have given rise to violent demonstrations against El Khomri’s bill. The link has never been restored until now.

History teacher and union leader

Son of a worker from the Chantiers de l’Atlantique and an asylum assistant, Berger went to college.

During his studies, he was a supervisor there. It was at this time that he joined the CFDT2. After a master’s degree in history at the University of Nantes and a thesis entitled “The episcopate of Monsignor Villepelet de Nantes (1936-1966)”, in 19916 he became a permanent member of the Christian Workers’ Youth.

He was its general secretary between 1992 and 1994. He then experienced a six-month period of unemployment and replaced some history and geography teachers.

He became an employee of an integration association in Saint-Nazaire to help long-term unemployed adults and RMI beneficiaries find work. Laurent Berger created a trade union section of the CFDT there and became the personnel representative of this nine-person structure.

Berger led the 12 marches against pension reform and designed his strategy with the Intersindical. The fight will continue, but his departure had been planned for him since he took office.

The reasons

“I said, during our congress in June 2022, in Lyon, that I would leave during my mandate. this is a decision carefully considered, taken in late 2021, following a discussion with my board colleagues. It’s not a whim or a choice dictated by current events,” he explained to Le Monde.

And he added: “I simply want to respect the collective rules and a form of personal ethics, linked to the democratic functioning of the CFDT. This is not a party, nor is it a personal society: it is a collective organization. it is normal that it is embodied in the leaders, but it is also important that it is renewed”.

for bergers the time has come for relief. “I held this position for ten and a half years, a period close to the terms of my predecessors,” she said. “With us there is a rule. We have been Secretary General for ten years, more or less two”, he explained last year, before the Association of Social Information Journalists (Ajis).

Indeed, he would have liked to leave earlier, in June 2022, but the covid-19 epidemic and the bad weather that was coming prompted him to stay. “It’s a decision that was carefully considered and made before the 2022 convention,” says a close friend of Laurent Berger.

Under the government of the man who also heads the European Trade Union Confederation, the CFDT became the first trade union in France, at the end of 2018, ahead of the CGT. His organization is also at the forefront of the conflict between trade unions and the government, in front of the Montreuil plant.

The CFDT has registered “31,000 more members since the beginning of the year”, thanks in particular to its place in the social movement, underlines its representative.

A role strengthened in recent weeks, at least in appearance, by the well-known interpersonal tensions between Emmanuel Macron and Laurent Berger: the former attacked the latter during his speeches, and the trade unionist ironically admitted that he would not “go on vacation”. ”with the Head of State. It remains to be seen whether the arrival of Marylise Léon will warm up relations with power.

women’s hour

It’s time for women in the French workers’ unions. After losing his leadership as France’s first trade union organization, Philippe Martinez, then general secretary of the CGT, gave his place in a contested congress to Sophie Binet, a philosopher.

Now the new CFDT union leader is Marylise Léon. She has been involved in the CFDT for a long time: former federal delegate of the trade union’s Chemistry-Energy federation, she was federal national secretary before becoming Laurent Berger’s right-hand man in June 2018.

He followed, like his leader, union issues, within the union. A sign of his increasingly central role in the organization, since January he has been the number one in all the Parisian demonstrations against the pension reform. Discreet, but always present.

Laurent Berger he is full of praise for his successor: “She’s dynamic, she has a great knowledge of the world of work, sometimes better than mine. She fought strongly during the unemployment insurance negotiations and is convinced that the ecological transition must be conducted in a socially just way. You appreciate yourself at home, you are close to people, human ”, she listed to Le Monde.

Unsa’s boss, Laurent Escure, hailed her as a “talented activist”.

Holder of a DESS in chemistry, Marylise Léon was responsible for environmental safety for several companies and worked for a consultancy firm on safety, environment and remediation of incineration plants.

After the explosion at the AZF factory, she joined the CFDT chemical federation, where she was responsible for major industrial risks and occupational disease prevention, and negotiator in the paperboard industry.

In 2014 she was elected national secretary with responsibility for industrial affairs, within the executive committee of the CFDT. The 46-year-old trade unionist was finally elected deputy general secretary of the union in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. It remains to be seen whether the arrival of Marylise Léon will warm relations with power.

It is not a gesture of weakness

Leaving the Council of Ministers, the government spokesman also paid tribute to the outgoing head of the CFDT: “He is free to decide when his mandate expires. He has been a serious, demanding, sometimes tough partner, we have seen it, and with whom we have been able to achieve significant progress for our country in terms of social rights or labor development ”, said Olivier Véran.

Laurent Berger’s next match it should not be seen as a sign of weakening of the inter-union against pensions, even the opponents warn.

“It is horrific to see that, in our country, surrender can be seen as giving up or giving up. What should be valued is precisely the fact of passing the hand to the head of a collective organization, because others are able to take on this function”, said Berger.

The interunion is “more than an adventure for a few”, adds Laurent Escure. However, the more radical might be tempted to take advantage of this upheaval to regain control of a social movement descent.

This departure also marks another major change: the first two unions in France now they will be led by women, Marylise Léon, on the one hand, and Sophia Binet, for the other. A small revolution, which will change the methods. Women they are much tougher in a negotiation What men.

ap​