CFDT’s Marylise Léon re-elected for new term, rules out compromise with far-right

Re-election and leadership

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.

Stance against the far-right

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.

Democracy under strain

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.”

Roadmap and female leadership

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.