The Ministry of Public Service announced Tuesday, June 28, that the salary of 5.7million public officials would be increased by 3.5% starting July 1.
According to the ministry, this 3.5% increase is the largest in the past 37 years and “adds up” to the 1.5% annual increase in the salaries of civil servants or contract workers.
The ministry assured that “no more agents” will be paid at minimum wage starting July 1. This was in spite of the fact that nearly 700,000 agents were affected by the resumption inflation.
According to INSEE, inflation was 5.2% in May, but Minister Stanislas Guierini insists on the complementarity between these “natural” increases, and the 3.5% thaw at the index point – the mechanism that determines the remuneration for public officials.
This revaluation will be visible on the pay slips of public officials in July/August with retroactive effect for July, according to the entourage of Stanislas Guierini.
According to the ministry, the total cost for the first thaw in the index point since February 2017 is 7.5 billion Euros. This will be split between the State of Europe and the communities.
Stanislas Guerini also announced additional measures to increase the buying power of agents through bonuses, transport, catering aid, and measures aimed at category B agents.
The Tuesday’s 3.5% salary increase was granted with a decade of poor general salary measures. However, the CGT union for state employees instantly ruled that it did not “make it possible to stabilize millions of public officials’ purchasing power.” Celine Verzeletti (co-secretary general of UFSE-CGT) stated that the minimum for them is a 10% increase with retroactivity to January 1, 2020 and indexation to inflation.
“The measures announced today represent a significant first step. The CFDT Public functions welcomed the unexpected increase in the index point’s value to 3.5%. Mylene Jacquot (general secretary of the second public sector union), immediately tempers, “But the context for inflation is just as unusual.”
