2023-09-18 08:32:10
The executive reiterates its support for civil servants. The government plans to change the legislation to allow a complaint to be filed by the administration on behalf of public officials attacked, among other measures in a plan to protect civil servants. “The philosophy” of a “protection plan” targeting “priority counter agents” is “never to leave agents alone in the face of difficulties, threats, violence”, explained to our colleagues at Parisian the Minister of the Civil Service, Stanislas Guérini.
In this article published Monday September 18, he insists: “Allowing public agents to do their work safely is the first consideration. And it is the basis for being able to provide a quality public service, says the minister.”
A limitation in the administration’s complaints
Why is this statement important? Until then, the administration could not file a complaint when a user injured an agent without damaging equipment or buildings. The Ministry of Civil Service thus intends to make it possible to “affirm support for the agent, to fight against the agent’s self-censorship and to strengthen the complaint”. The measure must be integrated into the next civil service reform. It is also planned to extend functional protection to beneficiaries, such as the spouse or family, as a precautionary measure.
The government also indicates a strengthening of “security devices”, such as alert buttons and video protection cameras, by releasing an envelope of one million euros, as well as an annual “barometer” – i.e. a survey – “to measure incivility and violence suffered by agents”, which will be launched at the beginning of 2024. In addition, training on “prevention” and “the fight against incivility” will be offered to civil servants from November .
“We have the right to functional protection”
On September 1, Stanislas Guérini affirmed during a speech at the Regional Institute of Administration of Villeurbanne, in the Lyon region, that “the first thing that the public employer owes to its agents is physical protection” . Speaking to AFP, the general secretary of the UFSE-CGT (1st union) Céline Verzeletti insisted on the need to implement existing systems. “We have the right to functional protection” provided by the employer, she explained, but “often, when we ask for it, we are refused it.
These measures also echo several tragedies that occurred in 2022 and 2023, during which a tax inspector, a teacher and a nurse were killed while doing their job. And the figures reported by Le Parisien are edifying: some 35,000 cases of health professionals attacked were recorded in 2021. Last May, a nurse was stabbed to death at the Reims University Hospital.
Three months later, on July 31, another nurse was attacked with a knife in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen. Violence denounced by the interdepartmental council of the Order of Nurses (Cocid). At the microphone of France Blue, Karim Mameri, its president said he was “very angry that a colleague was attacked as part of her work – she was going to see a patient -, and this for free.” And health personnel are not the only ones affected. 12,000 acts of incivility reported by family allowance funds in 2022. For its part, Pôle emploi estimates that they increased by 20% between 2020 and 2023.
A “purchasing power” bonus for the civil service
Note that these new measures reinforce the government’s seduction operation towards civil servants. At the same time, the executive is preparing to pay a “purchasing power” bonus for the civil service. “There will be 200,000 civil servants, precisely those on the front line and counters, who will receive a bonus of 800 euros gross. This will be paid for the vast majority of them in October and for certain operators in November , so very soon”, announced Stanislas Guerini on September 8.
According to figures communicated by the Ministry of Transformation and Public Service last June, 10% of civil service positions are paid less than 1,482 euros, while 10% are paid more than 3,446 euros.
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