The Senate on Saturday morning adopted two amendments aimed at bringing the sick leave regime for government employees on par with that of the private sector and drastically reducing the number of civil servants working for the state.</p><div data-agora-connect-urls="{"baseUrl":"https:\/\/connect.lefigaro.fr"}" data-component="fig-content-body" data-context="was @visible" data-id="bGVmaWdhcm8uZnJfXzFmMGQyOTMzLTcyYzctNjU2YS05ZWQyLTc5YmEyNDk2OTNmNl9fTmV3c0ZsYXNo" data-module="fig-body" data-premium="false">
<p class="fig-paragraph">They said it, they did it. On Saturday, December 6, the Senate passed an amendment aimed at establishing a three-day waiting period for civil servants and government contractors in the event of illness. Led by Pierre-Jean Rochette, from the Les Indépendants group, the aim is to align the civil service regime with that of the private sector and reduce costs for public finances. While the President of the Upper House of Parliament, Gérard Larcher, had warned in the columns of Le Figaro on Thursday that the Senate would make proposals <em>“an alignment of waiting days with private sector rules for state agents”</em>nothing had been decided in advance on this Saturday morning.
<p class="fig-paragraph">Currently, public sector workers only have to wait one day, while private sector workers have to wait three days during a work stoppage before receiving their per diem payments from health insurance. A <em>"iniquity"</em> the costs of which were assessed<em> “Not negligible for public finances” </em>by the authors of the amendment. In fact, the majority of private sector workers benefit from supplemental coverage, allowing them to maintain their salaries during this waiting period. A system that Senator Rochette described <em>“abuse of the law”</em> by companies, where the government is invited to do so <em>“Revise the principle of subrogation”</em> so that the employer can guarantee salary retention.</p>
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<h2 class="fig-body-heading" id="subhead-725f6ed0-489a-4ffa-9616-68241b174ad9">Towards an extension of the work stoppages?</h2>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Enough to bring the government and the left to the fore. This was said by the delegated Minister for Action and Public Accounts, David Amiel <em>"unfavorable"</em> to that extent, recalling the <em>“considerable efforts”</em> already asked government officials during the previous budget, <em>“especially with the reduction to 90% of compensation for sick leave”</em>. The minister also tried to wring the neck of certain people <em>“preconceived ideas”</em> : <em>“Government officials are no more absent than private sector workers. The absenteeism gap has been divided by six in ten years and today we are almost at the same level”</em>he insisted.</p>
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Criticism has increased on the left wings. Pierre Barros (Communist Republican Citizen and Ecologists Group – Kanaky) denounced a system that “transfers compensation” towards communities. “If these waiting days are imposed, care will be organized based on the budget of the municipality or department”he warned. The same tone with the Socialist senator Annie Le Houerou, who regretted a measure “stigmatizing” for government officials, who had already been given a waiting period of one day under Nicolas Sarkozy on January 1, 2012, “as a benchmark for equality between the private and public sectors”. This measure would certainly have contributed to reducing the number of sick leave, but at the cost of extending it. A logical consequence for the senator, who believes that officers who delay taking leave worsen their health condition, making a longer absence necessary.
End of the systematic replacement of pensions
This controversy surrounding government waiting times is not new. For more than a decade, its effectiveness has been repeatedly questioned: the measure was scrapped in 2014 (two years after its introduction) under François Hollande and reintroduced in 2018. The issue of the extension from one to three days sparked debate during the presentation of the draft budget by the government of François Bayrou, before the measure was eventually abolished despite the potential savings of 300 million euros. deleted. In September it was the National Rally that entered the fray.
For Pierre-Jean Rochette, this measure is a matter of common sense. “We often complain that there are thirty-six ways of thinking and reflecting (in this country)”he argued, ensuring that coordination with the private sector met a readability requirement. Despite opposition from the government and the left, the amendment was adopted, supported by the senatorial right and the committee, which had previously issued a favorable opinion.
The same applies to the failure to replace one in two state officials who retire in 2026. The measure, also voted against government advice on Saturday, December 6, will only affect employees of certain ministries and prefectures. The ministries of the armed forces, National Education, Home Affairs and Justice are spared. A measure that will now have to continue its parliamentary path to the National Assembly, where its enforcement is more than uncertain, just like the extension of the waiting period for the government.