Marylise Léon secured 98.12% support from the CFDT’s national bureau for a new four-year mandate.
Léon rules out any deal with the National Rally and refuses to meet its politicians, warning of worker instrumentalisation.
The congress activity report, adopted at 86%, condemned the immigration law, assembly dissolution, and growing brutalisation of public debate.
Yvan Ricordeau stays as deputy, Laurent Soulier replaces Jocelyne Cabanal as confederal treasurer.
Marylise Léon won a resounding mandate at the Bordeaux congress, with 98.12% backing from the union’s national bureau. The 41-member body also reappointed Yvan Ricordeau as deputy secretary general and named Laurent Soulier as confederal treasurer, replacing Jocelyne Cabanal. Léon, who has led the CFDT since mid-2023 when she succeeded Laurent Berger, now heads into the presidential campaign at the helm of France’s largest trade union.
Léon made clear that the CFDT will not engage with the National Rally. “There is no possible compromise” with the far-right party, she told delegates.
“Meeting far-right elected officials means certain that they will instrumentalize the situations workers face to pit them against one another.”
She rejected any equivalence between the extreme right and the far left, stressing the union’s visceral rejection of “national preference,” though she noted the CFDT has very few contacts with the far left.
The activity report, adopted Wednesday with 86% support, denounced what Léon called “successive jolts” to French democracy: the immigration law, dissolution of the National Assembly, government instability, public action bogged down, and brutalised debate. Opening the congress, she also decried “the will of part of the political class to bash unions.”
More than 1,600 delegates will vote Friday on a resolution that sets the union’s priorities for the coming four years. Léon’s re-election places her alongside Sophie Binet (CGT, re-elected in early June) and Christelle Thieffinne (CFE-CGC, installed on 10 June), meaning three of the five nationally representative unions will be led by women.
Pollar is free and carries no ads in the text. Its members keep it going.
Support PollarElections · Bordeaux
Marylise Léon, 49, was re-elected secretary general of the CFDT on Thursday with 98.12% of the vote at the union’s 51st congress in Bordeaux. She immediately declared no compromise possible with the National Rally and refused to meet its elected officials.
AI text based on reports by Franceinfo, Mediapart, 20minutes and other publishers. Published .