"We are discussing with the social partners and we are also working in conjunction with the French to adapt professional life to the conditions of the time", assured Friday the spokesman of the government Olivier Véran on franceinfo.
The government must "ensure that working conditions, that the organization of work in France improve", added the Minister of Relations with Parliament Franck Riester on France2.
And his colleague in the Budget, Gabriel Attal, to indicate a few days earlier to hear the demands of the demonstrators on "the quality of life at work".
The left-right debate on the "value of work" has returned to center stage since the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau evoked a "right to laziness". Remarks roundly swept aside by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin: the latter denounced a "profound contempt for the value of work that workers and the working classes defend".
"Acknowledgement"
The boss of the CFDT Laurent Berger refuses to fall into the "trap" of Mr. Darmanin returning to "say that there would be on the one hand those who think that it is necessary to work (...) and then the others, the lazy ones".
He regretted that Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne did not "talk about work" during her appearance on France2 on Thursday.
However, he explained on Monday, "work has value; today many in the world of work suffer from a problem of recognition" by "salaries, good working conditions, physical and psychological non-alteration work. We should have started with that".
The executive, which is struggling to win "the battle of opinion", especially on the postponement of the retirement age from 62 to 64, therefore ignites a new counter-fire: pressure on the SNCF and the RATP to improve careers and salaries, experimentation with a 36-hour week over four days at Ursaff in Picardy, promotion of negotiations to increase teachers' salaries...
But that doesn't seem to be enough. "Among those who consider that they do hard work - it is still a third of employees - the rate of support for the reform is only 12%", noted Friday the political scientist of Ifop Jérôme Fourquet on BFMTV.
"Package" work
"When you have more than one in two people who do not feel well in their work, inevitably if you tell them + you will have to work two more years +, it is very brutal", admitted Thursday the deputy Renaissance Stéphanie Rist, rapporteur for the pensions bill.
She would also have preferred that the government develop “a whole pack on work, with measures that make it possible to reassure”.
We must "tackle" the new report of the French at work, explained Ms. Borne to the deputies of the majority, enjoining them to make "proposals" in the pension text or that, planned for the spring, on full employment.
The government has already tabled a series of amendments softening its reform for certain categories, or to extend over time the possibility of buying back quarters of contributions for the years of internship or higher education.
But some points may not fit into the budget text chosen by the executive to pass its reform, such as hardship and employment of seniors.
For the time being, the oppositions and the majority have proposals to further sanction recalcitrant companies or to reduce to the smallest companies the compulsory application of the "senior index", which aims to describe the company's policy with regard to older employees.
So many provisions that could be integrated into the "full employment" bill of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt announced for the spring. In particular, it provides for the transformation of Pôle emploi into France Travail or a new system for the integration of RSA recipients.