The measures are part of the 60 billion euro effort to reduce the deficit to 5% of GDP.
This Sunday, October 27, the government detailed 5 billion euros in additional savings which target in particular the civil service via sick leave and waiting days, but also development aid, culture, and even the greening of vehicles.
These measures detailed by the offices of the Ministers of the Budget and the Civil Service will be taken by way of amendments to the 2025 finance bill and are part of the 60 billion euro effort to reduce the deficit to 5% of the GDP.
Of these 60 billion euros, 20 billion come from tax increases and 40 billion from spending reductions, including 20 billion for the State.
Of these 20 billion euros, 15 billion were already earmarked in the 2025 budget projects for the State and social security, but there remained 5 billion euros to be detailed.
Of this last total, the public service is called upon to contribute with 1.2 billion euros in expected savings via the increase in waiting days, which would increase to 3 days, compared to one day currently, and by capping at 90 % of remuneration for the first three months of ordinary sick leave, compared to 100% at present.
“Alignment with private sector practices”
“This is an alignment with private practices,” underlined the office of the Minister of the Civil Service during an exchange with the press.
It is based on a report submitted in September estimating savings of €900 million from capping remuneration at 90% during ordinary sick leave and €289 million from the move to three waiting days and recalls that the exceptions provided for by law will be respected (pregnancy, long-term illness, service accidents, disability, serious illnesses, etc.)
“We base ourselves on an observation which is the sharp increase in absenteeism in the public service over the past ten years. In ten years, the number of days of absence has increased from 43 million days in 2014 to 77 million days in 2022, which represents an increase of almost 80%” argued the ministerial services.
“We will start discussing it today with the trade union organizations and we hope that this dialogue can continue,” they stressed.
“I know that the plan that I unveil will be debated,” admitted the Minister of Civil Service Guillaume Kasbarian, in an interview with Le Figaro.
“We must have the courage to make difficult decisions today, to avoid even more difficult choices in the future, on massive reductions in staff numbers for example,” he warned.
For his part, Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin announced in Le Parisien that the 5 billion savings would translate into an “additional effort” of 1,000 fewer public jobs (full-time equivalents). They are in addition to the 2,200 civil servant positions that the government wants to eliminate in the draft budget.
“Sail reduction”
More than half of these 5 billion additional savings, or 2.6 billion, come from the cancellation of a “significant” part of the precautionary reserve of almost all ministries and their operators.
The Ministries of Defense, Interior, Justice, Higher Education and Overseas Territories will not be affected.
Added to this is a block of 1 billion euros of “targeted savings” on public policies, including 640 million euros reduction for development aid, 55 million reductions for culture, in particular public audiovisual and the refocusing of the Culture Pass, and 300 million reductions on support systems for the greening of vehicles.
On this last point, the envelope increases to 700 million euros instead of 1 billion, “it being specified that these 700 million euros will be supplemented by aid via energy saving certificates”, specified the offices.
Regarding development aid, this new cut is in addition to the reduction already planned in the 2025 draft budget, of 21% compared to the amount voted the previous year, i.e. 1.3 billion euros in less.
Finally, a final pocket of around 300 million additional savings will be taken from the cash flow of certain surplus operators, namely the water agencies, the National Institute of Intellectual Property (INPI) and the Financing Agency transport infrastructure (Afit)
