Perspectives pour la fonction publique en France

In France the issue of administrative reform, more specifically of the civil service, crops up constantly and yet is also almost a taboo subject. Nevertheless, the Conseil d’État has just produced an important report about it, and Marcel Pochard presents here some of its key ideas.
French civil servants (numbering more than 5 million people) are subject to the common law of employment, but they enjoy a special status that was intended originally to protect them from what Jules Jeanneney called “the impulses, injustices and the ever-present risk of arbitrary action by those in power”. As a result they constitute a particularly strong interest group (if not several).
While reminding us of the justifications for the special position of civil servants and the key characteristics, virtues and deficiencies of the public service, Marcel Pochard argues that a thorough overhaul is now indispensable.
He stresses that the civil service is facing three major issues: its performance, since the public sector cannot remain isolated from a largely inevitable general trend; better management of human resources, since this is recognized as having a key role in organizational efficiency; and reconciling the laws governing the public service with other branches of law, especially relating to the public budget and the free movement of state employees within the European Union.
In order to meet these challenges Pochard envisages five avenues of reform. The first concerns the laws relating to employees of the state and the need to review “their range and content” without questioning the need for special arrangements. The second proposes the introduction of contracts in civil service law. The third concerns the modes of management of civil servants, the fourth the modes of personnel organization and management, including the need to separate the grade from job content. The fifth and final one stresses the need to foster a better dialogue within and among civil service departments.
“The time has undoubtedly come for a complete overhaul of the French civil service”, writes Marcel Pochard, and his analysis and proposals, which are both daring and relevant, will doubtless generate a lively debate. It remains to be seen whether these recommendations will be accepted and, above all, whether anything will come of them…