The Minister of Transformation and the Public Service, Stanislas Guerini, launches his plan for the protection of public officials on Monday, which franceinfo was able to learn about. Alert buttons for mobile phones or offices, depending on the situation, will be deployed.
The government will create a barometer to better identify unacceptable acts, from the least serious to the most serious, because today there is no harmonized feedback, this is one of the lessons of the plan for the protection of public officials, launched Monday September 18 by Stanislas Guerini, Minister of Transformation and Public Service. In January, an annual survey will be launched among 25,000 representative civil servants so that they can report what they are victims of, so as not to miss anything.
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Alert buttons for mobile phones or offices, depending on the situation, will also be deployed. The objective is to be able to quickly report an attack to the security station when there is one, or to alert the police. Video protection devices are also provided. The government will release one million euros. And from November, there will be training, with the help of law enforcement, to learn how to defuse a tense situation with a user.
The employer can file a complaint in place of the victim
Prevention therefore, but also help when attacks take place. The ministry will strengthen what is called “functional protection”, which already allows victim agents to cover medical and legal costs. This protection will be extended to the families of attacked agents who are sometimes also threatened. The administration where the attacked official works may also file a complaint in place of the victim, who often waives it.
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These measurements are important, because even if we only have a few figures per operator today, they show the extent of the phenomenon. In 2022, CAF, the family allowance fund, recorded 12,000 acts of incivility towards its staff: insults, threats and other violence. Pôle emploi has seen the number of incivilities jump by 20% in three years, and in 2021 no less than 35,000 healthcare workers were attacked.
A political issue
The Minister of Transformation and Public Service Stanislas Guerini has been working on the subject since May. Several explanations for these verbal or physical attacks are put forward by the ministry: a general increase in the level of violence in society, a lack of respect for everything that represents the State and anger linked to the slowness of public services.
For the government, there is a political issue: this daily violence also contributes to strengthening the RN vote. Between 2017 and 2022, Marine Le Pen progressed in the second round by around 10 points in all categories of civil servants.