2023-04-19 09:24:19
Secretary General of the CFDT since November 2012, Laurent Berger announced, Wednesday April 19, at the national office of his organization that he will cede this responsibility on June 21 next. Marylise Léon, currently number two in the confederation, will succeed him. In an interview at Monde, he affirms that trade unionism emerges “winner” of the movement opposing the pension reform.
You have just told your authorities that you are going to leave your functions on June 21. Why do it like this in the midst of a conflict over pension reform?
I said, during our congress in June 2022, in Lyon, that I would leave during my mandate. This is a carefully considered decision, taken at the end of 2021, following discussion with my colleagues on the executive board. This is neither a whim nor a choice dictated by current events. I simply want to respect 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 enterprise: it is a collective organization. It is normal for it to be embodied in leaders, but it is also normal for it to renew itself.
I have held this position for ten and a half years, a period close to that of the mandates of my predecessors, François Chérèque and Nicole Notat. Initially, I was thinking of leaving a little earlier, in June 2022, but it would have been complicated to do so at that time.
Why have you questioned the calendar?
We had just gone through the Covid-19 epidemic, with several projects that had not been completed internally. The period presented great risks, politically speaking. It was therefore necessary to have a CFDT which might weigh, without having to manage a transition phase which might have been accompanied by wavering. In addition, I am President of the European Trade Union Confederation until May and I should have given up this responsibility before that date if I had given up the place of Secretary General of the CFDT in June 2022.
Are you leaving because of a form of weariness?
No. The function is certainly demanding, and I have many other aspirations – for example, to devote more time to my family and my friends. But I’m not leaving feeling fed up with the CFDT. If there is one thing that does not tire me, it is the militant passion and the one that I feel for the militants of our union organization.
How do you feel, two months before the start?
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