The government has spent 13.8 billion euros on salary measures since 2022 for the benefit of public employees, he details in a document presented Thursday to civil servant unions, hardly convinced five days before a call for mobilization to salaries.
General increases in basic salaries (+3.5% in 2022 and +1.5% in 2023) cost 9.2 billion euros, according to a document presented to the unions in the afternoon by the Ministry of public service.
The successive increases in the lowest salaries in the civil service, to prevent them from being caught up by the minimum wage, indexed to inflation and revalued several times in 2022 and 2023, cost 1.3 billion euros.
The government adds that it spent 2.3 billion euros to finance the exceptional bonus of 300 to 800 euros granted in the fall of 2023 to the lowest paid agents.
Finally, a billion euros were disbursed to contribute to the financing of civil servants' mutual insurance companies (up to 15 euros per month since 2022 in the state civil service) and to pay the Individual Purchasing Power Guarantee (Gipa, a sum intended to compensate for inflation).
For 2024,
“5 to 6 billion euros”
of additional spending is planned
“as a result of salary measures”
decided in recent years by the government, the Ministry of the Civil Service assured Thursday during an exchange with the press.
These amounts are highlighted a month after the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire announced 10 billion euros in cuts in state spending in 2024.
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Unions refuse a “blank year”
At the beginning of March, Minister for Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave increased the savings target for 2025 from 12 to 20 billion euros.
In this context, the Minister of the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini rules out at this stage any new general increase in 2024 for civil servants.
The unions are refusing a
“blank year”
in 2024 and are calling on the 5.7 million public employees to mobilize on Tuesday for their remuneration.
After reading a joint declaration in which they requested an
“objective”
diagnosis of the evolution of remuneration in the public service, the unions left the meeting organized Thursday by the administration.
The document which was presented to them by the government
"cannot constitute a basis for any diagnosis on remuneration in the public service given the highly partial choice of the elements presented"
, judge the CGT, FO (which did not attend at the meeting), the CFDT, the Unsa, the FSU, Solidaires, the CFE-CGC and the FA-FP.
The inter-union organization regrets the choice of one indicator in particular, the average remuneration of those in place (RMPP), which according to the executive has increased more than inflation in recent years.
“We did not make a choice between the figures that we like and the figures that we do not like
,” the ministry defended itself after the meeting.
“The RMPP is nothing other than the average value of the pay slips of real people from one year to the next
,” he further argued.
After the hasty departure of the unions,
“it is not our fault if the debate did not take place”
, adds the ministry.