Development aid, culture, support systems for the greening of vehicles, sick leave in the public service… The government announced new cuts this Sunday as part of the draft budget for 2025. The objective ? Five billion euros in additional savings.
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 euros effort decided as part of the budget to recover the accounts and reduce the deficit to 5% of 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 of the State and Social Security, but there remained five billion euros to be detailed.
The rules for sick leave in the public service revised?
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 three 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. “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 are basing ourselves on an observation which is the sharp increase in absenteeism in the public service for a ten years. In 10 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 begin to discuss this today with the trade union organizations and we hope that this dialogue can continue, however the parliamentary debate is fully legitimate in taking up these questions. »
“I know that the plan that I unveil will be debated,” admitted the Minister of Civil Service Guillaume Kasbarian, in an interview with 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. » For his part, Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin announced in The Parisian that the five billion savings would also 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.
One billion euros in “targeted savings” on public policies
More than half of these five 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. The details of how the ministries will distribute these savings will be known in the coming days, as the government tables the amendments.
Added to this is a block of one billion euros of “targeted savings” on public policies, including a 640 million euro reduction for development aid, a 55 million reduction for culture, in particular public audiovisual and the refocusing of the Culture Pass, and 300 million reduction on support systems for the greening of vehicles. On this last point, the envelope increases to 700 million euros instead of one 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. “The 2025 credits remain up by 1.2 billion euros compared to 2017, so it is not the renunciation of an ambition but a reduction in scope,” assures the ministerial office.
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).
