During his general policy speech at the beginning of October, French Prime Minister Michel Barnier announced a 2% increase in the minimum wage on November 1, which will bring it to 1,801.8 euros gross monthly.
However, the minimum salary (minimum salary) for civil servants, set at 1,801.74 euros, is today 6 euro cents lower than the future amount of the minimum wage.
Public employees cannot be paid below the minimum wage, the General Directorate of Administration and Civil Service (DGAFP) therefore indicated to the unions on Thursday evening that a “differential compensation” (bonus) of 6 cents would be paid on the 1st november.
This revaluation will concern “around 230,000 agents”, out of the 5.7 million in the civil service, the DGAFP told AFP.
It constitutes “the minimum application of regulatory texts”, noted Friday the Unsa-public service (4th public service union) on its site, calling for an “immediate” increase in the value of the index point, the mechanism used to calculate the base salary of civil servants.
In a press release, the CGT Civil Service described the increase as “derisory” and considered that it could “only be received as a mark of contempt and provocation by the staff concerned”.
While the unions are demanding in unison a general increase in wages, as the government had agreed to in 2022 (+3.5%) and 2023 (1.5%), the CGT judges that the payment of a bonus 6 centimes “does not respond in any way to the salary emergency”.
Second union of civil servants, behind the CGT, Force Ouvrière asserts in a press release that “we had to dare”.
By choosing to close the gap with the minimum wage via a bonus rather than an increase in the basic salary, “the country’s number one boss, the employer State”, proceeded “in the worst possible way”, criticizes FO.
“How can we then talk about the attractiveness of public employment, the loyalty of civil servants?”, the union pretends to wonder, before concluding that “civil servants and public agents are worth more than 0.06 euros” .
During previous increases in the minimum wage, the government had favored an increase in the basic salary of civil servants rather than the payment of a bonus to prevent public agents from being paid below the minimum wage, assures AFP Pascal Kessler, president of the FA-FP (8th union).
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