French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a "cultural revolution" to shake up France's archaic civil service yesterday, cutting numbers of employees but raising the pay of those kept on.
He vowed to reduce the number of places at ENA, the exclusive training school for French state functionaries, and he said civil servants should be allowed to choose their job contracts and be better paid for overtime.
"What I am proposing, it's a cultural revolution, a revolution for changing the way we think, for changing behavior," Sarkozy said in a speech to civil servants in Nantes, wedstern France.
The government had already floated proposals to cut the number of public sector workers as part of a plan to reduce the budget deficit next year.
Sarkozy confirmed that next year, one in three retiring public sector worker would not be replaced and that this number could go up in the future.
This will mean around 22,700 posts will not be filled next year, compared to 12,000 left unfilled in 2007. Public Accounts Minister Eric Woerth has estimated this would result in savings of up to 400 million euros ($550 million) next year.
Sarkozy said the reductions were necessary to help the government pay its bills and to make sure taxpayers money was not being wasted.
In an effort to head off complaints from union leaders, who are already unhappy about his plan to scale back pensions for some public sector workers, Sarkozy said the government would hold talks with them over the next few months.
Source: China Daily/agencies
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