For a long time, the Élysée refused to disclose this document. On May 16, 2024, Libération was finally able to publish a copy of a pay slip from the President of the Republic (for the month of January 2024). It was the former journalist Xavier Berne, founder of the site Ma Dada, an associative platform working for administrative transparency through the request of public documents from the authorities concerned, who obtained the copy.
He had made the request by email two months earlier. Well before that, an academic, teacher-researcher in Public Law (on secondment) and member of the Public Ethics Observatory had made the same request in 2020, initially without success until she contacted the Administrative Court.
Access rights to administrative documents
In principle, documents produced by the administration must be consultable for citizens, except in exceptional circumstances, as provided for in a 1978 law.
“Documents may not be communicated if their consultation or communication would undermine the secrecy of government deliberations, the secrecy of national defence, state security or public safety,” states the website of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Furthermore, this right of access to administrative documents does not concern those used to prepare a decision “when it is being prepared.” Requests considered abusive: too often repeated for example, may be rejected.
Basically, the amount of salary awarded to the Head of State was already known, even before the publication of this bulletin. When Nicolas Sarkozy was President of the Republic, his salary increased from 7,084 euros net to 19,331 euros, an increase of 172%, indicated Le Monde in November 2007, a few months after his election. This gross salary was then increased again to more than 21,000 euros per month.
His successor, François Hollande, had decided to limit the amount of the presidential salary – by around 30% to reach 14,910.31 euros gross – as well as that of ministers. In August 2012, he published a decree providing that: “The President of the Republic and members of the government receive a monthly gross salary calculated by reference to the salary of civil servants occupying state jobs classified in the so-called “off scale” category. . It is at most equal to twice the average of the lowest salary and the highest salary in this category.” He then wanted Parliament to validate the treatment of members of the executive by a vote, which the Constitutional Council had rejected, judging that this would have harmed the principle of separation of powers.
As for his retirement, at the end of François Hollande’s mandate, Le Figaro estimated it at 15,000 euros per month, which, a few years later, was confirmed by the main person concerned in an article on liberation.fr.
Since then, the rule set by the 2012 decree has not been modified. Seven years after his arrival at the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron’s gross salary – excluding allowances and other benefits – was therefore not entirely unknown.
What is new with the publication of the pay slip is that, although details have been “redacted” (kept secret), new elements are now known, notably certain allowances. Here, in detail, are the other elements of the presidential pay slip.