President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a shake-up of France's civil service last night by cutting the numbers of employees and raising the pay of those kept on.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a shake-up of France's civil service
He vowed to reduce the number of places at ENA, the exclusive training school for French state functionaries, and said civil servants should be allowed to choose their job contracts and be better paid for overtime.
"What I am proposing is a cultural revolution, a revolution for changing the way we think, for changing behaviour," Mr Sarkozy said in a speech to civil servants in Nantes.
The government has floated proposals to cut France's five million-strong public sector workforce as part of a plan to reduce the budget deficit next year.
Trade unions, which count many public sector workers among their members, have expressed concern.
They are already unhappy about Mr Sarkozy's plan to scale back pensions for some public sector workers. Five unions have called for rail workers to strike on October 17 to protest against the pension plans.
Mr Sarkozy confirmed that next year one in three retiring public sector workers 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.