The “yellow vests” crisis, in 2018-2019, then the Covid-19 epidemic will probably get the better of Emmanuel Macron’s promise to cut 120,000 public service positions. On the State side, this was to concern 50,000 jobs. But, in 2019, the government abandoned most of this objective, considering that the demand for the State and for public service was incompatible with this budgetary choice.
As for local communities, they were invited to do without 70,000 units before 2022. Officially, this objective has never been abandoned. Yet he has little chance of being held. Statistics from the Ministry of Transformation and the Public Service indeed show that town halls, inter-municipal authorities or regions have once again become very greedy in terms of jobs.
From 1997 to 2019, recalls François Ecalle, president of Public Finances and the Economy (Fipeco), a specialized documentary site, the number of public officials increased by 965,000 in all: 124,000 in the State civil service, 290,000 in hospitals and 551,000 in local authorities – data excluding transfers linked to decentralization and subsidized contracts. For the latter, specifies Mr. Ecalle, who also teaches courses in economic policy at the University of Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, this corresponds to an average annual growth of 1.7%, “Significantly higher than that of all three public services, which was 0.9% per year”, and that employment in France, public and private (0.7%).
And the movement is accelerating, continues the president of Fipeco. “A marked slowdown” had occurred under the mandate of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) and, by lowering the State’s budgetary allocations to local communities, François Hollande (2012-2017) had even succeeded in reversing the trend: the workforce decreased in 2015 (- 6,000 jobs) and in 2016 (- 4,000), “What had never been seen before”, recalls Mr. Ecalle.
The test of contractualization
With Emmanuel Macron, the movement started to rise again: + 13,000 jobs in 2018 and + 16,500 in 2019. Then Minister of Action and Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin declared, in July 2019: “We have limited operating expenses in the most important communities, and encouraged investment. We should meet the objective of 70,000 job cuts in local authorities, and thus reduce in total by about 85,000 the number of civil servant posts over the five-year term. “ To meet the objective of a reduction of 70,000 jobs in 2022, it would therefore be necessary that 99,500 be abolished over the last three years of the five-year term.
You have 56.13% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.