Emmanuel Macron and pensions: the bulldozer strategy

Emmanuel Macron had made pension reform and raising the retirement age to 65 the alpha and omega of his presidential campaign. The start of the school year, against a backdrop of inflationary and geopolitical crises, had however seemed to get the subject out of mind. Including those of its most eminent ministers. At the beginning of September, in a small committee at Bercy, Bruno Le Maire said he was betting more, in the immediate future, on “full employment and its recipes for restoring public finances” rather than on “the pension reform which has no support anywhere”. And the Minister of the Economy to support: “Neither the unions nor the Medef want it, that complicates the situation. »

But the head of state, who likes nothing more than to surprise, has once again taken his world by storm. Hesitant, President? Not at all. On September 12, questioned on the said reform by an assembly of journalists, he hammered home: “I have no doubt that it should be done. I have no doubt that this is effective and fair. I have no doubt that we should not wait because it must come into force for the summer [2023]. » Even if it means going into force this fall. The (infernal?) machine is launched.

Why such a rush? Firstly because Emmanuel Macron has learned the lesson of his first five-year term, of these hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets against a pension reform launched too late, once the state of grace has passed. He also knows that the