Faced with inflation that continues to erode the purchasing power of the 5.7 million public servants, the government and the civil servants’ unions are starting a cycle of discussions on Monday around salary increase measures.
Civil Service Minister Stanislas Guerini is due to receive the eight civil service representative organizations by the end of the week.
The first union in the public sector, the CGT will open the ball on Monday at 8:45 a.m., followed by Force Ouvrière (Tuesday at 8:45 a.m.) and the CFDT, Unsa and FSU (Tuesday afternoon). The FA-FP union will be the last to be received, probably Thursday afternoon.
Focus efforts on the lowest paid
While one in five civil servants has been paid the minimum wage (1,383 euros net) since the last increase in the minimum wage on May 1, the government intends to focus its salary efforts on the lowest paid public officials.
The unions, on the other hand, are asking for increases for the benefit of all civil servants, like the 3.5% increase in salaries decided in the summer of 2022.
“Our objective would be to have at least as good as in 2022”, advanced last week the secretary general of the CFDT Public functions Mylène Jacquot.
“We feel a great paradox between the voluntarism of Minister Guerini and the announcements of the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire or President Emmanuel Macron”, anxious respectively to reduce the expenditure of the ministries by 5% and to devote 2 billion euros by 2027 to tax cuts, worries the secretary general of the FGF-FO Christian Grolier.
The first exchange since the pension reform
The discussions around wages will be the first official exchange in weeks between the administration and the unions, which had suspended the dialogue because of their unanimous opposition to the pension reform.
“We are not going to resume the discussion as before, trust has been broken” by this reform which postponed the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, warns Mr. Grolier.
The eight unions are already planning to meet around May 30 to take stock of any commitments obtained and the continuation of their participation in the dialogue with the government. For his part, Stanlislas Guerini hopes to be able to announce wage measures “during the month of June”.