The makeover has been radical. For more than eight years, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), a historic French union, today the second in number of affiliates, was embodied by the mustachioed town of Philippe Martinez, son of anti-Franco Spanish immigrants, metallurgical technician and former employee of Renault. A mature man with a somewhat scruffy demeanor, he looked like a worker from the world before the digital revolution. On March 31st, a young woman, Sophie Binet, with fine features and light eyes, took over from Martinez, although behind that sweet appearance hides a seasoned trade unionist and ready to fight in one of the phases of greatest social unrest in the last years.
The choice of Binet, 41, came as a complete surprise at the CGT congress held near Clermont-Ferrand, the city of Michelin, the tire giant. Everything seemed prepared for another woman, Marie Buisson, with the endorsement of Martinez, to assume command. But an alternative candidacy emerged, from another woman, and the delegates opted, as a consensus solution, for the third way represented by Binet.
It is the first time in its 128-year history that the CGT is not led by a man. Binet's irruption caught everyone off guard, the press included. The winner didn't even have a biography on Wikipedia. But within the union she was not unknown. She was in charge of the Ugict subsidiary, which includes engineers, technicians and management teams. Binet belongs to a new generation of union leaders already hardened in the struggles and who dominate modern communication techniques.
The brand new general secretary of the CGT has a marked feminist and environmental sensibility. She was already in charge of the commission on women's rights and diversity. From that position, she was the interlocutor of the feminist movements. Modern trade unionism talks less about class struggle and more about overcoming discrimination.
While Martinez was a communist militant (there were always close ties between the PCF and the CGT), Binet had a Socialist Party card and felt close to the current of Martine Aubry, still mayor of Lille. During François Hollande's presidency, she distanced herself from the PS because of her opposition to changing labor laws and the liberal turn.
Binet's career is unique. At a very young age he belonged to the Christian Workers Youth and, as a Philosophy student in Nantes, he came to be at the top of the Unef university union, close to the Socialists. She then worked as an education counselor at a vocational training institute.
Very little has transpired about Binet's private life. It is known that her partner is a merchant marine officer and that they are the parents of a four-year-old boy.
Martinez retired just after turning 62, a sign of the firm position of the CGT against the pension reform, which plans to delay the legal retirement age to 64 years. This reform, still pending legal review by the Constitutional Council, has revived unions that have been losing strength for decades. Managing this crucial phase is the first big litmus test for Binet. His approach is as combative as his predecessor's or even more. Martinez has been accused of going too far behind Laurent Berger, the leader of the union with the most affiliates today, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), with a more pact-oriented tradition, but which this time has been very harsh.
It will not be easy for Binet to lead an organization as varied and plural as the CGT, which has not digested well having lost primacy to the CFDT. You will need skill to preserve the internal balances of a complex puzzle. He will require a more consensual style than Martinez. Next to Binet, in the position of administrator, is the communist Laurent Brun, leader of the powerful railway subsidiary. A synthesis of old and new world in French syndicalism.
