Lhe Council of State canceled, on September 28, a provision of the 2021 decree relating to bonuses granted to academics, which had the effect of excluding from the benefit of two of them professors and lecturers with additional income from the exercise of a liberal profession. This configuration mainly concerns lawyers, managers, certain economists or psychologists.
We will not stop here at the reasoning of the Council of State which invokes the principle of equality and its violation by the decree to justify its decision. Is he worried about the inequality thus justified between specialists in disciplines who can benefit from such a supplement, sometimes substantial, of remuneration, and other academics? Let us rather see the concrete configuration that this decision ratifies.
On the one hand, it is shocking to see our university colleagues exercising a liberal profession at the same time, invoke the right to obtain bonuses of a fairly ridiculous amount alongside the emoluments they receive for their “secondary” activity. A little moral conscience should lead them to spontaneously renounce the benefit of such bonuses, even when they are legally entitled to them.
On the other hand, the bonuses granted to ordinary academics pale in comparison to those received by senior or even middle-level civil servants in other ministries, for whom they have become an essential component of salaries. . On the other hand, there is indeed a category of academics who receive significant bonuses: these are those who have opted for administrative management positions, presidents of universities, university communities, etc.
In other words, to earn a decent living as an academic, one must either opt for administration or devote a large part of one’s time to a liberal activity, which has the effect of considering the salary of a civil servant as a safety net. . This means, in both cases, renouncing the university vocation which consists in devoting oneself fully to the two missions that constitute the profession: research and teaching backed by research. There could be no more explicit contempt for the university and the academic profession.
Olivier Beaud is a professor of public law at the University of Paris-II – Panthéon-Assas; Francois Vatin is professor of sociology at the University of Paris-Nanterre.