The pension reform continues to cause controversy in the country. At the dawn of a new day of mobilization this Thursday, the Constitutional Council must deliver its verdict on April 14. If many French people still hope for total censorship of the text, it is possible that it will experience partial censorship or be fully validated by the Elders. While waiting for this deadline, the former Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, split, through his social networks, a long analysis on the pension reform and its failure. Back to comments largely addressed to Emmanuel Macron.
Decidedly, the pension reform does not stop talking and everyone today seems to have a clear opinion on the issue. While the opposition continues to demand the withdrawal of the text and the French remain mobilized in the streets, certain political figures have decided to make their voices heard. Among them, the former minister of Lionel Jospin, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, wrote a four-page text, broadcast on his social networks, where he expresses his opinion on the pension reform. He mentions in particular errors of strategy, timing or even method committed by the President of the Republic.
According to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, “France is in a sad state” and he makes it known in a long analysis called “the fifth error”, where he recounts in detail the errors of the Head of State which caused the “ blockage of French society”. Throughout his text, the former minister speaks of an ill-chosen moment and of a pension reform that is certainly “important”, but not “urgent”. He returns in particular to the crisis which is currently affecting the French, subject to galloping inflation, a distressing post-covid period and the specter of climate change.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn also applies to recall that the reserve fund created, in his time, by Lionel Jospin should have alleviated the budgetary constraint of the system by avoiding such a rapid reform. The former Minister of the Economy then relies on the questionable choices of Nicolas Sarkozy, who siphoned off this fund at the end of 2010.
Like many French people, Dominique Strauss-Kahn also opposes raising the legal retirement age, explaining that “the design of the system” must change, but not the retirement age. He also clarifies his thinking by insisting on the fact that France must get out of “a system which is based on the retirement age to build a system based on the contribution period”.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is also critical of the head of state, Emmanuel Macron, speaking of a strategic error. He points the finger at the functioning of France, which “is not a country in which one can carry out a major social reform […] by neglecting the social balance of power”.
Without directly quoting the President of the Republic, he questions his exercise of power and a lack of political audacity. While evoking the holding of the Constitutional Council, “with the historical perspective of an increasingly brown political future”, he calls on Emmanuel Macron to “take initiatives to renew the threads of a social dialogue that has been too brutally interrupted”.