The civil service reform project carried out by the previous government, which included increasing merit-based remuneration, is at this stage “neither maintained nor abandoned”, public sector unions said on Monday after his first interview with the new minister Guillaume Gabaria.
“The minister refuses at this point to definitively bury the bill (by former Public Service Minister Stanislas) Guerini, declaring that all hypotheses are on the table, including a total or at least partial resumption,” indicated the CGT. Public Service, the main union in the sector, in a press release published after the interview with Guillaume Kasbarian.
The general secretary of Force Ouvrière (second union), received early in the afternoon, Christian Grolier, confirms to AFP that the reform project “is neither abandoned nor maintained” at this stage. Guillaume Kasbarian “told us (…) that time is being given to listen to all the union organizations before knowing whether it is necessary to approve a new law or not, or if it is necessary to take up some elements” of Stanislas Guerini’s project, which It planned to eliminate the historical categories of the public service (A, B and C) or even facilitate dismissals, added Christian Grolier.
2025 budget project
The other six unions representing the public service (in order CFDT, Unsa, FSU, Solidaires, CFE-CGC and FA-FP) must be received at the ministry in the coming days. Asked by the AFP about the content of the first exchanges with the unions, the Ministry of Public Service, Simplification and Transformation of Public Action did not want to react.
During the handover ceremony with his predecessor on September 23, Guillaume Kasbarian welcomed the “ambitious” reform of Stanislas Guerini, without giving clear indications about the fate he planned to reserve for him. “You and your teams have undertaken many projects in recent months,” he told his predecessor. “I will have the honor of taking them forward, so that the fruits of your work soon materialize on the ground,” he added.
Although Christian Grolier greeted a “listening” new minister on Monday, who received him for two hours, he nevertheless noted that Guillaume Kasbarian was “extremely cautious” in his guidelines, on the eve of Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s general policy declaration and before the presentation of the draft budget for 2025. The minister also added the term “simplification” to the title of his portfolio again, a week after promising to “debureaucratize at all levels.”
“Simplification of procedures”
Natacha Pommet, a member of the CGT delegation received on Monday, told AFP that Guillaume Kasbarian had particularly insisted on Monday “on the simplification of procedures for the user”, rather than on possible job cuts feared by the unions. Regarding salary increases, a reiterated expectation of the unions, “they have not committed at all to making any announcement,” said Natacha Pommet.
Source: BFM TV
