In Saint-Bonnet-Laval (Lozère), we are looking for a town hall secretary. But the mayor of this village of 250 inhabitants is not overwhelmed with CVs. “I only had five”, notes Jean-Louis Soulier (without label). However, there is one application, that of a person in training, that caught his attention.
Recruiting a town hall secretary, “it’s very complicated”, sighs this rural elected official. “This job doesn’t seem to interest many people,” complains Jean-Louis Soulier. It must be said that in our small town halls in the countryside, it’s not a full-time job, it has to come into play. It is necessary to make several town halls, to have a full-time. And then, to be town clerk, you have to want to live in the countryside, in sometimes remote corners. For a salary that is not necessarily very attractive.
A third of town hall secretaries will retire in the Gard
Jean-Louis Soulier is not the only elected official, in the east of Occitania, to be confronted with such a problem. In the region, there is even talk of a “shortage” of town hall secretaries, which is likely to worsen in the coming years. Training is being put in place to remedy this. In March, the University of Nîmes (Gard) launched a diploma, which trains 19 people for six months in this profession. They learn the workings of municipal financing or human resource management.
According to the Gard Territorial Public Service Management Center, in 2024, 23 town hall secretaries will retire in the department, out of the 65 employees in this position in the territory, i.e. more than a third. In Aude, the situation is even more tense: by 2025, out of 70 communities that have a town clerk, 60 retirements are planned. “It’s the effect of the baby boom, it’s the generation of the end of the 1950s who are retiring, explains Nicolas Font, lecturer and head of the new town hall secretary training at the university. Nimes. These people were hired in the 1980s or early 1990s, and they are now nearing the end of their careers. »
“An exciting, but complicated job”
If other professions in the public service are likely to be affected by this wave of departures, recruitment is much more complicated for this position. Because a town clerk is “a Swiss army knife, they are people who know how to do almost everything, continues the professor. They have to do complex tasks, and others a little less. It’s a pretty rare state of mind. “It is, adds Fabrice Verdier (PS), president of the Center for the management of the territorial function of the Gard and the community of municipalities of the country of Uzès, “an exciting, but complicated job. You are at the heart of all public policies, you are the mayor’s partner. You have to be very versatile, you have to be able to set up a budget, take care of human resources, etc. »
Moreover, in the villages, a town hall secretary also has “a social dimension. Welcoming the public, drinking coffee with the elderly person who comes to make a photocopy but who, in reality, comes above all to have a little chat…” In a small town, “if the town clerk is not up to it, you are in great difficulty”, confides Fabrice Verdier, who also remembers having had “difficulty recruiting”.
“There is also, I think, an image problem, continues the president of the community of communes of the country of Uzès. I am in favor, for my part, of changing the name of “town hall secretary” to “general secretary”. It sounds anecdotal like that, but it’s not. We would be much more attractive than we are today. Serge Brunel (PS), mayor of Conilhac-Corbières and president of the Center for the management of the territorial function of Aude, is of the same opinion. “You have to go from the mayor’s secretary to the general secretary of a town hall,” he says. »
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