“I want us to lift the taboo of dismissal”, assumes Minister Stanislas Guerini

His reform project aims in particular to increase merit-based pay for civil servants and facilitate transfers from one branch to another of the civil service.

The Minister of the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini launched consultations on his civil service reform project on Tuesday April 9 in Paris, immediately encountering the anger of the unions. Announced in September 2023, the reform was initially to be presented to the Council of Ministers in February, but is now announced for the fall. This bill aims in particular to increase merit-based remuneration for civil servants and facilitate transfers from one branch of the civil service to another (State, communities, hospitals).

“An unfair project which will increase the division between public officials”, worried Public Service Solidaires. The Ministry of Public Service is trying to calm things down by recalling that the aim of Tuesday’s meeting, which brought together unions, hospital employers and communities, “is to place on the table all the objects (of consultation), without taboo, without dissimulation”. In a document presented to them, the government details a series of measures that it plans to include in its reform: systematic maintenance of remuneration in the event of a transfer, easier granting of a “permanent employment” to apprentices, or even broadening the range of sanctions in the face of “professional inadequacy”.

A “dogmatic” reform according to the unions

If the official is “holder of his rank”he is not however “the owner of his job”, insists the executive. “I want us to lift the taboo of dismissal in the public service”trumpeted Stanislas Guerini in The Parisianpointing a “culture of avoidance on these subjects”. The historical categories of the civil service (A, B and C) are also in the hot seat, because they are judged by the government “increasingly shifted” with the reality of public sector jobs.

Not requesting this bill, the eight representative unions denounced on Monday, in a joint press release, a reform in their eyes “dogmatic” and who wouldn’t answer “none of the concerns expressed by public officials”. The consultation must continue until the summer, before presenting the bill at the start of the school year.