24 mars 2011
Le Nouveau Centre soutient Eugène-Loïc Ermessent
Le Nouveau Centre (Ludovic Assier, président de la fédération ornaise, Ken Tatham , maire de Saint-Ceneri-le-Gerei, et Patrick Lindet, délégué départemental) estiment que « dimanche dernier, les électeurs du canton de Carrouges ont massivement renouvelé leur confiance au conseiller général sortant Eugène-Loïc Ermessent. Par ce choix, les habitants du canton ont manifesté leur attachement au travail de proximité réalisé par cet humaniste convaincu, cet homme d'écoute et d'action au service de ce beau territoire et de ses habitants. [...] En servant le tourisme, l'agriculture et l'environnement en parfaite harmonie, il sert l'emploi. En réunissant tous les talents autour de cette tâche, il favorise l'avenir de l'Orne, l'avenir du canton de Carrouges. Dimanche prochain, au deuxième tour, accordons-lui nos suffrages pour que le canton de Carrouges et notre département puissent continuer à prospérer. Votons Eugène-Loïc Ermessent ! »
23 mars 2011
French civil servant's confession strikes a chord in drive to shrink state
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French civil servant's confession strikes a chord in drive to shrink state
The French public services are vast, expensive and notoriously complex. But reform is the country's great political taboo
Ken Tatham, right, British-born mayor of
St Céneri le Gerei. 'They could do with a bit of Mrs Thatcher here,' he
says. Photograph: Jean Francois Monier/AFP
Aurélie Boullet is an unlikely whistleblower. A straight-A
student, she attended Paris's most prestigious universities and won a
coveted place to train as a high-ranking civil servant in local
government. On the first morning in her first job at the regional
council of Aquitaine, she immediately felt there was something very
wrong. Her first task took her an hour, but she was told it was a week's
work.
"It was a sheer waste of time. There are plenty of people and not enough work. So there are a lot of people who have nothing to do," she says. "They go on Facebook, they chat, they go to endless meetings and spend a lot of their day complaining about being overworked."
Writing under a pen name Zoé Shepherd, she started a blog documenting the daily grind of not having enough to do. Her blog picked up hundreds of followers from all over France, many also languishing in dusty corners of government with not enough to do.
"These are not people celebrating being able to be lazy, but frustrated that they can't do more," she says. The blog became a book, Absolument Debordée (Absolutely snowed under), Boullet was exposed by a colleague and, amid a blizzard of publicity last June, she was suspended. Her employers issued a statement accusing her of producing a 300-page "denigration" of her colleagues. "One more drop in the populist anti-civil servant discourse that we hear too often," it said.
The book provided ammunition for those on the right who believe that the French president Nicolas Sarkozy should be pushing through plans to shrink the state. It also coincided with renewed pressure from the EU for member states to bring deficits under control – a thought that has not much troubled a French leader since the last time the budget was balanced in 1976.
A "natural wastage" policy of reducing the civil service by not replacing half of retirees was extended at the budget last autumn as part of the €45bn (£39bn) deficit reduction programme. The ministries are being reorganised to reduce costs and every part of government – other than higher education – has had its funding frozen.
To understand the scale and complexity of the French state, you might start at its most local point, for example, in the mayor's office of Saint-Céneri-le-Gérei, a picturesque village with a population of 140 people in Basse (lower) Normandie. It has a river bubbling through it, a church that draws up to 5,000 visitors in a high-season weekend and ancient ruins of a castle bearing the scars of battles with the British.
Ken Tatham, the UK-born mayor, has powers to determine local taxes, register births, deaths and marriages, and controls a budget of €100,000. Over the years he's been the first official called to the scene of five suicides. He spent last weekend negotiating a lost Polish lorry that got stuck in a lane.
"If anything goes wrong or if there's any sort of problem they come and see me. They've lost a dog? They ring me up. Their wife is ill? They ring me," he says.
The mayor is at the heart of civic life, but above that are several layers of local and regional government, each with its own responsibilities, tax powers, independence and back office.
Tatham takes me down to the bridge across the river that bisects his village in an attempt to explain how France in governed. On one side is the département of Sarthe, on the other is the départment of Orne. Cross the bridge and he loses all power. Two other authorities have responsibility for the road crossing the bridge and a tiny metal button nestled in the brickwork marks the boundary.
"No doubt about it, the French state is too complicated; nobody understands it. When things are that complicated it makes civil servants very powerful because only they understand how it works," he says.
A huge reorganisation of regional government is under way, with plans to merge the councillors of 96 départements, created by Napoleon and designed for a man on a horse to cross in a day, with 22 regional councils. The last elections for the old-style départements were held on Sunday.
Ostensibly the reforms are about rationalisation and efficiencies, but most suspect a political motive. Merging the two will dilute the Socialist party's domination of the regions with the vote from the départements, which tend to go to the right. It's as yet unclear how it will affect the two separate administrations.
Tatham is sceptical: "I doubt the reforms will help. They are going to create something just as difficult. I'm sure it will create more jobs."
The reforms are being driven by Alain Lambert, president of Orne département, which contains Saint Céneri. A powerful politician on the right of the UMP, he was the budget minister in Paris until 2004 and has been the driving force for the reforms. But even he acknowledges the difficulty, describing the changes as "about as easy to achieve as banning the kilt in Scotland" because they mean job losses for elected councillors and upheaval for the civil service.
Lambert said he believes half of the civil service should be sacked immediately as a "wake-up call" for the country.
"Administrations pass on their complexities to families and businesses with more and more Kafkaesque regulations, then harass them with audits which paralyse both public and private activity and initiatives," he says.
Lambert says reform is frustrated by the sheer size, weight and power of the civil service. "In France, these administrations dominate the political body, even become merged with it," he says.
Tatham, who was born in Leeds but has lived in the village for 44 years, blames the threat of strike from the unions. "They could do with a bit of Mrs Thatcher here," he says.
Michele Kauffer is secretary of the public services union within the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France's best-known union. The CGT offices are in a monolithic concrete building on the outskirts of Paris with a whiff of the 1980s about them.
Kauffer says that though the cuts seem small on international comparisons, the reality is bigger. The policy of not replacing one of every two people who leave has removed 100,000 posts so far. The effects have been profound: fewer teachers and nurses, who are employed centrally by the state and considered to be civil servants. Meanwhile, councils have taken on more and more responsibilities from roads to vocational qualifications and social services, without extra money, meaning some that are so inclined are rapidly privatising provision – resulting in increased fees for the public.
She also cites a subtle chipping away at civil servants' employment rights. A 1994 law that allowed local authorities to sack workers who lost their job when a service was closed but refused to take three alternative jobs, has been extended to all civil servants. In reality it is rarely used, but there are fears it will be.
"It is still a job for life but there are attacks on that," says Kauffer. "We have more tasks, less good working conditions and we also have dissatisfaction of a job which is not well done. Stress is an emerging problem. This was never the case before."
But even some progressives on the left believe reforms are needed. Richard Descoings, director of the Sciences Po in Paris, France's most prestigious school of political science, and a former adviser to the government's budget ministry, said: "Globally, yes, we have too many public servants.
"But when you ask, do you think there are enough nurses in the hospitals, then the answer's no. If you ask do you find it normal to have 35 students in a class, it's too big."
Thierry Dedieu, of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, France's biggest trade union group, said the blanket policy of not replacing people was "ridiculous", leaving schools under-staffed and not touching other areas.
"It is a job for life and you can't be sacked unless it is very, very serious, and because of this you might have some people not working as efficiently as everybody else," he said. "But in other [areas of the] public sector, people are suffering. You might have a divide in people who are working incredibly hard and others who are not incentivised by that lifelong employment."
Boullet, who insists that as a civil servant she is entirely apolitical, agrees. "There are not enough teachers, not enough nurses, not enough police – but too many people in the back offices," she said. She blamed locally elected councillors for stuffing their back offices with staff as a show of power.
Boullet has now won a legal argument and has been reinstated in another post in the same authority.
She has more work to do, but believes she could still do more. Her €3,000-a-month salary as a senior civil servant is more than an ordinary teacher would ever earn per month in their career in France.
Most people explain Sarkozy's relative timidity to risk a fight with the unions over reform on the bruises from last year's bust-up over the change to the state pension age and the fact that he is up for re-election next year. Reform is France's great political taboo, and the timing just isn't right.
However, Owen Tudor, head of international relations in the TUC back in London, argues that we shouldn't be fooled into thinking the French cuts are insignificant.
"It's probably true to say that the French cuts are neither as fast or as deep as the UK ones," he says. "But the French trade unionists would say that it's a bigger shock to them. They would say that's what's happening is a cultural shift, whereas what's happening to us is a numerical shift in provision."
Others reason that resistance to any change runs deep in France. "The French hate change," Tatham said. "When I changed the paving stones in the centre of the village, there was an outcry. They just do not like change. It's in their genes."
"It was a sheer waste of time. There are plenty of people and not enough work. So there are a lot of people who have nothing to do," she says. "They go on Facebook, they chat, they go to endless meetings and spend a lot of their day complaining about being overworked."
Writing under a pen name Zoé Shepherd, she started a blog documenting the daily grind of not having enough to do. Her blog picked up hundreds of followers from all over France, many also languishing in dusty corners of government with not enough to do.
"These are not people celebrating being able to be lazy, but frustrated that they can't do more," she says. The blog became a book, Absolument Debordée (Absolutely snowed under), Boullet was exposed by a colleague and, amid a blizzard of publicity last June, she was suspended. Her employers issued a statement accusing her of producing a 300-page "denigration" of her colleagues. "One more drop in the populist anti-civil servant discourse that we hear too often," it said.
The book provided ammunition for those on the right who believe that the French president Nicolas Sarkozy should be pushing through plans to shrink the state. It also coincided with renewed pressure from the EU for member states to bring deficits under control – a thought that has not much troubled a French leader since the last time the budget was balanced in 1976.
A "natural wastage" policy of reducing the civil service by not replacing half of retirees was extended at the budget last autumn as part of the €45bn (£39bn) deficit reduction programme. The ministries are being reorganised to reduce costs and every part of government – other than higher education – has had its funding frozen.
To understand the scale and complexity of the French state, you might start at its most local point, for example, in the mayor's office of Saint-Céneri-le-Gérei, a picturesque village with a population of 140 people in Basse (lower) Normandie. It has a river bubbling through it, a church that draws up to 5,000 visitors in a high-season weekend and ancient ruins of a castle bearing the scars of battles with the British.
Ken Tatham, the UK-born mayor, has powers to determine local taxes, register births, deaths and marriages, and controls a budget of €100,000. Over the years he's been the first official called to the scene of five suicides. He spent last weekend negotiating a lost Polish lorry that got stuck in a lane.
"If anything goes wrong or if there's any sort of problem they come and see me. They've lost a dog? They ring me up. Their wife is ill? They ring me," he says.
The mayor is at the heart of civic life, but above that are several layers of local and regional government, each with its own responsibilities, tax powers, independence and back office.
Tatham takes me down to the bridge across the river that bisects his village in an attempt to explain how France in governed. On one side is the département of Sarthe, on the other is the départment of Orne. Cross the bridge and he loses all power. Two other authorities have responsibility for the road crossing the bridge and a tiny metal button nestled in the brickwork marks the boundary.
"No doubt about it, the French state is too complicated; nobody understands it. When things are that complicated it makes civil servants very powerful because only they understand how it works," he says.
A huge reorganisation of regional government is under way, with plans to merge the councillors of 96 départements, created by Napoleon and designed for a man on a horse to cross in a day, with 22 regional councils. The last elections for the old-style départements were held on Sunday.
Ostensibly the reforms are about rationalisation and efficiencies, but most suspect a political motive. Merging the two will dilute the Socialist party's domination of the regions with the vote from the départements, which tend to go to the right. It's as yet unclear how it will affect the two separate administrations.
Tatham is sceptical: "I doubt the reforms will help. They are going to create something just as difficult. I'm sure it will create more jobs."
The reforms are being driven by Alain Lambert, president of Orne département, which contains Saint Céneri. A powerful politician on the right of the UMP, he was the budget minister in Paris until 2004 and has been the driving force for the reforms. But even he acknowledges the difficulty, describing the changes as "about as easy to achieve as banning the kilt in Scotland" because they mean job losses for elected councillors and upheaval for the civil service.
Lambert said he believes half of the civil service should be sacked immediately as a "wake-up call" for the country.
"Administrations pass on their complexities to families and businesses with more and more Kafkaesque regulations, then harass them with audits which paralyse both public and private activity and initiatives," he says.
Lambert says reform is frustrated by the sheer size, weight and power of the civil service. "In France, these administrations dominate the political body, even become merged with it," he says.
Tatham, who was born in Leeds but has lived in the village for 44 years, blames the threat of strike from the unions. "They could do with a bit of Mrs Thatcher here," he says.
Michele Kauffer is secretary of the public services union within the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France's best-known union. The CGT offices are in a monolithic concrete building on the outskirts of Paris with a whiff of the 1980s about them.
Kauffer says that though the cuts seem small on international comparisons, the reality is bigger. The policy of not replacing one of every two people who leave has removed 100,000 posts so far. The effects have been profound: fewer teachers and nurses, who are employed centrally by the state and considered to be civil servants. Meanwhile, councils have taken on more and more responsibilities from roads to vocational qualifications and social services, without extra money, meaning some that are so inclined are rapidly privatising provision – resulting in increased fees for the public.
She also cites a subtle chipping away at civil servants' employment rights. A 1994 law that allowed local authorities to sack workers who lost their job when a service was closed but refused to take three alternative jobs, has been extended to all civil servants. In reality it is rarely used, but there are fears it will be.
"It is still a job for life but there are attacks on that," says Kauffer. "We have more tasks, less good working conditions and we also have dissatisfaction of a job which is not well done. Stress is an emerging problem. This was never the case before."
But even some progressives on the left believe reforms are needed. Richard Descoings, director of the Sciences Po in Paris, France's most prestigious school of political science, and a former adviser to the government's budget ministry, said: "Globally, yes, we have too many public servants.
"But when you ask, do you think there are enough nurses in the hospitals, then the answer's no. If you ask do you find it normal to have 35 students in a class, it's too big."
Thierry Dedieu, of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, France's biggest trade union group, said the blanket policy of not replacing people was "ridiculous", leaving schools under-staffed and not touching other areas.
"It is a job for life and you can't be sacked unless it is very, very serious, and because of this you might have some people not working as efficiently as everybody else," he said. "But in other [areas of the] public sector, people are suffering. You might have a divide in people who are working incredibly hard and others who are not incentivised by that lifelong employment."
Boullet, who insists that as a civil servant she is entirely apolitical, agrees. "There are not enough teachers, not enough nurses, not enough police – but too many people in the back offices," she said. She blamed locally elected councillors for stuffing their back offices with staff as a show of power.
Boullet has now won a legal argument and has been reinstated in another post in the same authority.
She has more work to do, but believes she could still do more. Her €3,000-a-month salary as a senior civil servant is more than an ordinary teacher would ever earn per month in their career in France.
Most people explain Sarkozy's relative timidity to risk a fight with the unions over reform on the bruises from last year's bust-up over the change to the state pension age and the fact that he is up for re-election next year. Reform is France's great political taboo, and the timing just isn't right.
However, Owen Tudor, head of international relations in the TUC back in London, argues that we shouldn't be fooled into thinking the French cuts are insignificant.
"It's probably true to say that the French cuts are neither as fast or as deep as the UK ones," he says. "But the French trade unionists would say that it's a bigger shock to them. They would say that's what's happening is a cultural shift, whereas what's happening to us is a numerical shift in provision."
Others reason that resistance to any change runs deep in France. "The French hate change," Tatham said. "When I changed the paving stones in the centre of the village, there was an outcry. They just do not like change. It's in their genes."
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