A handful of Renaissance deputies are launching training on retirement at 64. The maneuver aims to give all the arguments to the elected officials on the ground to convince the French, very reluctant so far.
Train your own deputies to convince. On the eve of a mobilization that the unions hope will be massive, the Renaissance group in the National Assembly wants to equip its elected officials to enable them to be persuasive. A training system has been put in place, with 8 deputies responsible for explaining the main lines of the reform to their colleagues and answering their questions during meetings organized at the National Assembly.
The idea is in particular to avoid a disastrous media sequence with a deputy who would not manage to answer on a market or in a television program. “We are also training because we are all a little afraid of having a white person in the face of someone’s very particular case and of seeing it turn on social networks”, recognizes a deputy of the Cultural Affairs Committee.
“Already no one wants to work more, if we ourselves seem to hesitate, it will not work”, continues this elected official.
“A request from non-specialist colleagues”
This Wednesday afternoon, it was Éric Woerth, Nicolas Sarkozy’s former Minister of Labor who had himself defended the postponement of the retirement age in 2010 and Charlotte Lecocq-Parmentier who donned the cap of teachers for the very first session. Marc Ferracci, one of the number 2 of the group, is also one of the trainers.
“We felt a demand for colleagues who were not specialists in the subject and who want to be able to train”, explains Charlotte Parmentier-Lecocq to BFMTV.com.
“We have a lot of questions about concrete cases of French people we meet in our constituencies and which the deputies want to be able to answer”, further advances this elected representative from the North.
It must be said that there is an urgent need for Macronie to convince on the ground: a large majority of French people are opposed to retirement at 64. To reverse the trend, the Renaissance group has also launched a loop on Telegram messaging to be able to be very responsive to questions from its deputies.
“To convince, you have to explain a lot”
Finally, the elected specialists have planned to accompany colleagues in their constituency during public meetings.
“I am available to anyone who wishes to meet voters. To convince, you have to explain a lot,” says Éric Woerth.
With one challenge: not to be “techno”. Emmanuel Macron has already urged the presidential majority to “be an educator” and to “show humility”. The President of the Republic also called on his lieutenants to insist “on the sense of the collective, the civic” of the pension reform.
The message passed 5 out of 5 with his troops. “We have a reform which is beautiful and which is complex”, assures Eric Woerth. “Everyone tries to see directly how it will impact him,” continues Nicolas Sarkozy’s ex-minister. “We must therefore explain while recalling that we are in a system based on solidarity between generations and that we must look beyond our own case.”
To facilitate the task of elected Renaissance officials, the party has already printed leaflets distributed in recent days which praise “justice”, “balance” and “progress” of the reform.
