Marylise Léon, general secretary of the CFDT since 2023, was re-elected Thursday June 25 at the head of the first French union for a four-year term. She will still represent the union during the presidential campaign after having assured during the 51st congress of the organization, which has been held since Monday in Bordeaux, that “there is no compromise possible” with the RN, whose elected officials she refuses to meet.
Marylise Léon, 49, opened the congress by criticizing “the desire of part of the political class to hit the unions”. The activity report she presented, adopted on Wednesday by more than 86%, denounced the “successive shocks” to French democracy: “immigration law, dissolution of the National Assembly, governmental instability, stagnation of public action, brutalization of debates”.
“True radicalism, today, is to embrace nuance,” declared Marylise Léon, 49, before the delegates of the organization’s 51st congress in Bordeaux. “In an era that demands everyone to choose their side and shout with them, maintaining nuance is anything but soft. » “Negotiation is never weakness”, “compromise is not weakness”, further asserts the union leader.
Born on November 23, 1976 in Le Mans, mother of two children, Marylise Léon was the second woman to take the helm of the confederation after Nicole Notat – who led it from 1992 to 2002 –, succeeding Laurent Berger in June 2023. She arrived at the head of the first union after the government’s forceful passage on pension reform despite very broad mobilization from the streets and unfailing union unity against the raising of the retirement age to 64 years.
“Expert” course
After the failure of the conclave initiated by François Bayrou in 2025 to make this reform more socially acceptable, Marylise Léon denounces the intransigence of employers. She obtained a victory in the fall with the suspension of the reform. Jean-Pierre Farandou notes that then, “under his leadership, the CFDT is fully committed to the work, employment, pensions conference with the ambition of putting work back at the center of public debate”.
Her other assumed fight, ten months before the presidential election, remains against the rise of the RN: “We are fighting today, and we will fight tomorrow against the ideas and actions of the extreme right,” she reaffirmed at the Bordeaux congress. A line – shared with that of the leader of the CGT Sophie Binet – that she intends to defend during the presidential election who, three years ago, readily recognized that her career was more that of an “expert” than an “activist”.
Deputy Secretary General from 2018 to 2023, Marylise Léon was responsible for strategic issues such as unemployment insurance and inter-union relations. She represented the CFDT within the Power of Living Pact, an alliance of more than sixty organizations acting for the convergence of ecological and social issues.
A graduate in chemistry, she notably worked as an environmental safety manager in a consulting firm. In 2003, shortly after the AZF disaster, she was hired at the study and training institute of the Chemistry and Energy federation of the CFDT to support union representatives in companies on safety and environmental issues.
From 2009, she was responsible within this federation for occupational health issues and monitoring the chemistry, glass and cardboard sectors. In 2014, she joined the Confederation as national confederal secretary, in charge of sustainable development issues, corporate social responsibility, industrial and energy policy, and social dialogue. “It is not up to the most vulnerable, those who cannot afford it, to pay for the ecological transition,” she says today.
The 41 members of the elected national office also reappointed Yvan Ricordeau as deputy general secretary on Friday and designated Laurent Soulier as confederal treasurer, from the Chemistry-Energy federation, replacing Jocelyne Cabanal. On Friday, the more than 1,600 delegates of the congress will vote on a demand resolution which will serve as a road map for the reformist union for the next four years.
