three questions on the reform for civil servants wanted by Emmanuel Macron

During his press conference on Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to strengthen the weight of merit in the careers of civil servants. A measure which will be part of the future civil service reform.

He was already talking about it when he was Minister of the Economy in 2015, and he said it again during his press conference as president on Tuesday January 16: Emmanuel Macron wants to strengthen the share of merit in the remuneration of civil servants. Here is the framework within which public employers can currently reward their teams and what the government plans to change.

How are civil servants paid?

The 5.7 million public officials (civil servants, contract workers and military personnel) all receive a basic salary called “index salary”, the amount of which depends on the rank and scale of the employee. The salary scales are common to the entire public service (State, hospitals, communities). It is therefore identical for all public officials with identical seniority and position.

To this treatment may be added compensation and bonuses called the “compensation regime”. There is, for example, compensation paid to agents who work overtime or who have accepted functional or geographical mobility. Bonuses can, for example, reward an agent’s performance or productivity.

What is the weight of bonuses in their remuneration?

The main bonus to remunerate the individual merit of public officials is the “annual compensation supplement” (CIA). This is an optional bonus which takes into account “the professional commitment and manner of service of the civil servant”, according to the administration’s definition. Only state civil servants can benefit from it and it represents only a minimal percentage of their pay.

In 2021, bonuses and allowances as a whole represented less than a quarter (23.8%) of civil servants’ salaries, according to the administration.

What is the government planning?

Tuesday evening, Emmanuel Macron asked the new government of Gabriel Attal that for civil servants, “the main criterion for advancement and remuneration” or, alongside seniority, merit, “in any case much more than today” by promising reform “in the next weeks”.

Before the resignation of the previous government, the Minister of the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini had already committed to presenting a bill reforming the civil service in February. He then planned to better reward the individual, but also collective, commitment of public agents. A bonus could, for example, be paid to a team of civil servants who have achieved their objective of reducing electricity or gas consumption.

In any case, this reform arouses strong reluctance within the unions. The CGT Civil Service, for example, denounced a project which would induce “random parts of salaries” and “random remuneration”.