Budget: Bercy tightens the screw as a wage gesture for civil servants looms

2023-05-24 18:21:56

Would the cicada become an ant? After three years of “whatever it takes”, the government has just tightened the purse strings a little more, by freezing 1% of the credits in its 2023 budget. A gesture which must be interpreted both as a political signal and as a desire to put some money aside while salary measures are expected for civil servants.

This Tuesday, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and her Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, resolved to what the latter describes as a “precautionary measure”. “We must be lucid about the persistence of certain economic risks”, explained to AFP the tenant of Bercy, citing the continuation of the war in Ukraine and the rise in interest rates.

Criticized practice

This freeze of 1% of appropriations (excluding payroll) represents 1.8 billion euros and comes on top of the 5% already “frozen” in the initial finance law, i.e. a small cushion of 10 billion to deal with the unforeseen events and stick to the objective of a deficit of 4.9% of GDP (compared to 4.7% in 2022) always claimed at all costs . “Depending on the evolution of the situation, we will cancel or on the contrary we will unfreeze in part or in whole” these credits, underlines the minister.

The irony of the situation comes from the fact that the government is returning to a method that it had sharply criticized in the past. This practice of freezing credits – which is also sometimes seen as a way of navigating on sight – had reached new heights under François Hollande, reaching 10% of the total in 2017, which had prompted the Court of Auditors to evoke the “insincere character of the finance law. During Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, the level of the initial freeze had returned to 3%.

“Managers will be screaming, but I think the government’s decision this year is necessary to hold the accounts. It is also a clear signal of greater rigor and a symbol of the exit from ‘whatever the cost’”, judge François Ecalle, manager of the site specializing in public finances Fipeco and former magistrate at the Court of Auditors.

In fact, it has escaped no one that this very technical measure benefited from careful communication on the part of the executive, a few days before the publication of the opinion on June 2 by Standard and Poor’s on the note attached to the French debt. Bruno Le Maire received the teams from the rating agency recently. He also announced that the Public Finance Conference will finally be held on June 19 where he will have “the opportunity to specify the savings that we will make from the finance bill for 2024”.

Salary request

Beyond the political signal, this credit freeze could also respond to a new budgetary constraint. Since Monday, Stanislas Guerini, the Minister of the Public Service, has received the unions representing the sector. The latter are all calling for an increase in the index point – which serves as the basis for calculating remuneration – and specific measures for the least qualified (category C).

For now, Stanislas Guerini has only said he hopes to be able to announce salary measures “during the month of June”. “We will not cut a new rise in the index point this year, with inflation as high as last year”, judges a minister holding a large portfolio. Local elected officials are “open to a moderate revaluation of the index point”, also indicates Philippe Laurent, the spokesperson for the Coordination of territorial public employers.

While the executive had conceded a 3.5% increase in the index point last year in the face of soaring prices, the finance bill for 2023 originally did not provide for any measure of this type. The announced freeze makes it possible to release some additional means, while preserving the general level of the deficit. “A 1% increase in the index point represents a cost of 2 billion for the three public services and 800 million for the State alone”, recalls François Ecalle.