Holland tries to calm the ardor of its reformist wing – Le Figaro

Holland tries to calm the ardor of its reformist wing – Le Figaro

After the controversy on unemployment benefits, the president has sought the elusive synthesis left.

Topics explosives for intractable debates, a clash of divergent lines, a pinch of ego squabbles and an improbable synthesis to pack everything … It sounds like a convention of the PS, it is the ruling Socialists. Whether on family benefits or unemployment insurance, they offered these days quite incomprehensible spectacle leaving room for all possible interpretations. The sequence takes place in three stages: an iconoclastic proposal by taking the right wing of the PS, one leapt from the left wing, a focus of the President of the Republic. All on the back of orders from Brussels to Paris to accelerate the pace of reform and threats to dismiss his 2015 budget.

This is how Francois Hollande on Monday rejected attempts at reforms UI expressed Sunday by Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron The Sunday Journal . “Trading on the subject will come in due course, not immediately,” said the Elysee before Labour Minister François Rebsamen not trying to close momentarily debate by ensuring that “there is no place in immediately renegotiate anything and besides, it’s not possible. “

I must say it was on fire. Already last week, the Prime Minister had expressed the same desire from London to initiate reform of unemployment insurance before Francois Hollande tries already to close the debate from Milan. The episode had accredited the idea of ​​a first dissonance between Francois Hollande and Manuel Valls. But by approaching the subject again this weekend, Emmanuel Macron has caused controversy all the more important that his words were involved at the same time stood a Socialist Party national council in Paris. “This has probably inflamed because of it, provides an advisor to President of the Republic, which minimizes the impact of the comments Emmanuel Macron. His response was balanced and he acknowledged that the subject was not relevant. “

Nevertheless, it did not miss, the Socialists are still away, which to denounce the minister’s remarks, which to support it. So that the fault line that François Hollande, and Manuel Valls had tried to cover up last week reappeared. At Matignon, we want to believe that “the matter is closed” and it is said that “the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and Emmanuel Macron say the same thing: that the issue arises in the context of negotiations between the social partners . . The last date in 2016 we are in 2014 so it is not immediately “

In addition to this formal aspect, there is also a fundamental question: to What good reforming unemployment insurance to get the unemployed back to work if there are no jobs? On this point, the blocks are known and primarily related to rigidities in the labor market, as indeed recalled Monday Jean Tirole. “The French market is pretty grim employment, said the new winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics for his first speaking. I think we have to change things if we want to give a future to our children. “For now, the government has not put in discussion the relaxation of social thresholds. Socialists who welcomed Monday the Nobel Jean Tirole, like François Hollande and Manuel Valls, could also address some of its proposals to reform the labor market, such as to establish a contract single working with test where companies can dismiss exempt period. “This is not the order of the day,” begs do we as president. As for reforming unemployment insurance on the due date, it will fall one year before the presidential election.