The deputies among the best paid French, but in decline

MPs are still at the top of the income scale, but they have been falling since the 2000s. They are now part of the best paid 3% of French people, whereas they belonged to the most advantaged 1% there is around twenty years old, according to a study by sociologist Etienne Ollion and jurist Eric Buge, published on Wednesday April 26, in the latest issue of the journal The annals and in a note from the Public Policy Institute (PDF).

Since July 1, 2022, deputies and senators receive a monthly allowance of 7,493 euros gross, aligned with the salary of very high officials of the Council of State. This remuneration is “the price of independence and the dignity of office”underlines the website of the National Assembly.

A significant decline from the 2000s

“The parliamentary indemnity has been the object of fierce and regular criticism” since its establishment in 1789, recall Etienne Ollion and Eric Buge in their investigation. Since 1914, they have endeavored to estimate the amount of “actual compensation” MPs, by deducting the costs related to the mandate (parliamentary office, staff, etc.). During the 20th century, this real level reached between 3 and 5 times the average worker’s wage. And between 1945 and the end of the 1990s, the parliamentary allowance placed deputies among the 1% of French people with the highest incomes.

In detail, the revaluations of the civil service point increased this remuneration until the 1960s. Then another mechanism was triggered: the Assembly gradually took charge of costs such as the remuneration of employees, travel and computer costs. This indirectly increased the real income of MPs.

But from the 2000s, this income experienced “a significant drop”, which has reduced parliamentarians from the rank of 1% to the rank of 3% of the highest paid French people, calculated the authors of the study. Because the remuneration is then “linked to the index point (of civil servants) only, without the possibility of additional support for their expenses”. In addition, the non-cumulation of mandates since 2017 has limited other sources of income, they conclude.