Political and media hysteria contribute to the charm of the French debate. The Rencontres de l’Avenir de Saint-Raphaël, which I organize each year at the invitation of its mayor Frédéric Masquelier, and of which L’Express is a partner, hosted President Nicolas Sarkozy on November 8. The conversation between the former head of state and the author of these lines took place in front of more than 1,000 people in the Palais des Congrès and was broadcast live on the BFMTV website. The discussion focused on the anti-Semitic plague, too often fought with culpable weakness, on the election of Donald Trump who, according to the former president, won “because he spoke to the American nation about the nation, when Kamala Harris spoke to American communities about “communities”, or about the future of the Franco-German couple, with regard to its functioning during the financial and economic crisis of 2008.
During an exchange on the difficult, but necessary, control of our public spending, the former head of state defended, with his usual frankness, the idea according to which there were too many teachers – 1 million – with insufficient working time – 24 hours a week and long vacations. It was enough to strangle the left with, at the head, the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, undoubtedly more at ease on this subject than on that of the anti-Semitism of some of its members. political allies and, in the pack, teachers’ unions, communists and even MoDem deputies, it is true that they are more passionate in their parliamentary work about tax increases than about controlling our spending.
Civil servants work less than 34 hours per week
There is outrage, but the debate is legitimate. To claim that we can reduce the number of teachers, increase their time in class and increase their salaries, as is the case in Germany, is anything but absurd. According to a senatorial report, French teachers work slightly less than the European average, whether in terms of teaching time or total working time.
But the main thing is elsewhere. Our discussion focused more broadly on the factual observation that, in our country, we are not working collectively enough to make our State and our social protection sustainable, and so that wages can increase significantly and sustainably. This reasoning may seem banal but it is absolutely correct. Ultimately, there are only two sources of enrichment for a country: work and innovation. But there is no innovation without work!
According to calculations by Rexecode economists, French employees have the lowest effective working hours in Europe after Finland – 122 hours less than in Germany, 162 hours less than in Italy. The employment rate for Europeans aged 15 to 64 is 70%, or 2 points more than in France. As for civil servants, according to the Dares (Directorate for the Animation of Research, Studies and Statistics), they work 1,580 hours per year, or less than 34 hours per week, hence Gabriel’s recent proposal Attal to increase working hours in the public service to… 35 hours.
An uncontrolled explosion of sick leave
These figures are completely incompatible with the reduction of our deficits, particularly social ones. In reality, the left, supposedly attached to our welfare state, should be at the forefront of this subject! But it has abandoned questions of growth and social progress. Nicolas Sarkozy is relaunching the debate where the current right is struggling to do so: so much the better!
It is symptomatic that one of the rising stars of the current government is the Minister of Civil Service and Simplification Guillaume Kasbarian, also present at the Rencontres de l’Avenir in Saint-Raphaël in front of a packed room. This minister has been identified by the general public since he announced, to deal with the uncontrolled explosion of short-term sick leave in the public service, the establishment of three waiting days and compensation capped at 90% of salary. According to an Odoxa-Backbone survey for Le Figaro61% of French people agree with this measure. Which shows, no offense to right-thinking people, that a large part of our fellow citizens understand that working more is a right idea.
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