Together with his bushy moustache and gruff method, Philippe Martinez definitely seems to be the a part of the revolutionary Frenchman as he leads protests geared toward forcing President Emmanuel Macron to desert his bid to lift the retirement age.

However individuals who know him say the 61-year previous boss of the CGT, France’s oldest and most hardline labour union, has fastidiously cultivated that picture, which is in actual fact considerably synthetic. The actual Martinez, they are saying, is a canny negotiator and pragmatist with a dry sense of humour.

The previous metalworker at automaker Renault is now placing these expertise, in addition to his notoriety, to make use of in probably the most pivotal battle of his eight-year tenure on the helm of CGT.

Blocking Macron’s pensions reform is the speedy precedence. However so is managing his succession (he steps down on the finish of the month) and retaining the CGT related at a time when membership has fallen a lot that it has misplaced its crown as France’s greatest union to the average CFDT.

“We should put France at a standstill to make the president hear us,” stated Martinez on Monday. The CGT has hardened its ways, with rolling strikes which have disrupted transport, blocked deliveries to petrol stations and minimize electrical energy output at nuclear vegetation.

Martinez has been getting ready for this second since childhood. He was born in a Paris suburb to a Spanish republican activist mom. His father, a Frenchman, fought with anti-Franco forces within the Spanish civil struggle.

“Philippe grew up in a militant household so has been going to protests since he was a child,” says Fabien Gâche, a former colleague at Renault. “The conviction that social progress can come solely from staff establishing their energy within the streets is one thing that’s deep in his DNA.”

He first joined the Communist occasion’s youth wing in highschool, however later left the occasion. At 21, he started working as a technician on the Renault manufacturing facility in Boulogne-Billancourt on the outskirts of Paris. He remained on the French carmaker for his total profession.

At Renault, he joined and climbed the ranks of the CGT, which was based in 1895 and has lengthy been related to worldwide socialism and the Communist occasion. Dominique Andolfatto, a political scientist on the College of Burgundy, says that though the CGT was typically seen as monolithic, it all the time contained various leftwing currents. “It’s a union that could be a reflection of French nationwide historical past and symbolises the fragmentation of the left.”

By the Nineteen Seventies, the CGT had 2mn members. However by the point Martinez was combating for staff at Renault, the union was already on the wane. Globalisation led to a wave of manufacturing facility shutdowns in France, whereas unions struggled to protect staff from the results of extra intense competitors and deregulation in enterprise. Membership has fallen to about 660,000 in the present day, in keeping with Andolfatto.

Martinez was to not solely in charge for the decline, in keeping with Denis Gravouil, the top of the CGT department representing staff within the cultural sector. He notes the frequent journeys to corporations of all sizes and kinds to listen to from staff. “Everybody needed to take selfies with him within the factories and at protest marches,” Gravouil says. “However he’s not very diplomatic, in order that has created tensions internally.”

Because the pensions protests began, the CGT has fashioned a profitable coalition with seven different unions in what has turned out to be the most important such mobilisation in many years. Martinez has allowed his critics to demonise him and the CGT for intransigence, letting the CFDT’s Laurent Berger be the face of the motion. In a front-page photograph of the pair beaming at one another at a protest, the newspaper Libération dubbed the bromance “La lutte de miel”, which is a play on the French phrases for honeymoon and sophistication warfare.

“Philippe Martinez shouldn’t be some terrible particular person as some want to paint him,” stated Berger in an interview. “He’s a unionist who has fastidiously cultivated his picture as a curmudgeon however truly he’s completely centered on labour points. He has led this motion in a really accountable method.” 

Martinez is adamant that elevating the retirement age to 64, which is paired in Macron’s proposed reforms with the requirement to work 43 years for a full pension, is profoundly unjust — he argues that it hurts blue-collar staff probably the most. The CGT needs individuals to retire at 60 with greater pensions for all, and he would fund it with greater taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

A authorities official who is aware of Martinez audibly sighs when requested in regards to the CGT’s pensions plan. “It could wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs!” the particular person says. “Philippe is so dogmatic. His positions are old-fashioned.” 

Throughout the CGT, Martinez is definitely seen as a average who has sought to draw youthful members by including points comparable to local weather change and feminism to the union’s agenda. He has nominated Marie Buisson, a schoolteacher, to succeed him, though different candidates are additionally operating. She can be the primary girl to steer the CGT, and the one one on the head of any of the key unions in the present day.

Requested by a TV journalist just lately whether or not he would shave off his moustache as soon as he retired since he now not wanted to “encourage worry”, Martinez shot again: “You don’t like my moustache?” Whatever the destiny of his facial hair, he vowed that he would “nonetheless be within the streets with my comrades though now not on the entrance of the marches”.

This text has been amended to make clear that Marie Buisson would be the first girl to steer the CGT; different main unions have been led by a lady

leila.abboud@ft.com