Civil servants: the government's shock plan targets 120,000 job cuts

The French government proposed Thursday to launch a voluntary departure plan for civil servants who would like to leave because of the reforms it intends to undertake, Edouard Philippe saying that he assumes to be able to offend "sensitivities".

The Prime Minister also announced that merit pay for civil servants and the use of contract workers would be significantly developed in the coming years.

He unveiled with the Minister of Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin, the first measures of the Public Action 2022 plan which should help generate the billions of euros in savings promised by Emmanuel Macron by the end of his five-year term.

Gérald Darmanin said it was possible to "imagine with public officials a voluntary departure plan for those who would like to leave as a result of the reform of the State", by discussing, until the end of 2018, with the unions.

"Upset the balance" to "repair the country"

The objective remains to reduce the number of agents by 120,000 by the end of the five-year term, including 50,000 in the civil service of the State, specified Matignon. There were 5.65 million civil servants at the end of 2015, or one employee in five.

Reduce public spending as promised

The reduction in the number of civil servants will be one of the levers to reduce public spending as promised by three points of GDP by 2022, i.e. more than 60 billion euros euros.

Certain missions carried out today by the State could be abandoned.

He hoped that the discussions could take place "without falling into any of the caricatures that our country adores" and assured that the status of the civil service would be preserved. Unions expressed their surprise and their vigilance.

Unsa denounced "a massive job cut". The general secretary of the General Union of CGT civil servants' federations, Jean-Marc Canon, declared on RTL that the departure plan is a "major subject of discontent".

The government wants the texts to implement these measures to be "taken" in early 2019. The complete roadmap of the Public Action 2022 plan will be presented in April during a second committee.

The automation of administrative services

At the same time, the government wants 100% of administrative procedures to be accessible on the internet by 2022, including on mobile phones.

A unique identification system will allow users to connect to all public services. Any new public online service launched after April 1, 2018 will be accessible via this system - called FRANCEConnect Identity - and all existing online services by December 31, 2020.

New services will be quickly accessible on the internet, including building permit applications and town planning procedures, legal aid, back-to-school formalities or CMU-C/ACS applications.

Companies will be able to submit their responses to all public tenders online from October 31, 2018.

Expenditure control: pending the report of the Court of Auditors...

The Mandatory Declaration of Employment of Disabled Workers (DOETH) can be made online via the Nominative Social Declaration (DSN ) as of January 1, 2020.

HLM project owners will be able to submit their social housing financing applications online. Public service quality indicators will also be published by 2020.

The Court of Auditors, which will publish its annual public report next week, has warned the Head of State about the control of public spending.

Its first president, Didier Migaud, said last week that "the conditions to be met in order to achieve the objectives set by the programming law are numerous and far from certain" and that "the savings hypotheses must be strengthened and come to fruition".

(With Reuters)

4 mins

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