“Taboo” of dismissal in the public service: in what cases can an agent be dismissed?

Ready to cut the Gordian knot, Stanislas Guerini calls for “lifting the taboo of dismissal in the public service” in order to strengthen its “effectiveness”. In the columns of Le Parisien, the minister bangs his fist on the table. “There has been a culture of avoidance on these subjects for too long,” he complains, pointing to the figures for layoffs in the state civil service (prefectural ministries, educational establishments). “It is a distortion of the status of the civil service to consider that in the name of guaranteeing employment, we cannot separate ourselves from an agent who does not do his job,” he adds. If the minister intends to facilitate entry and exit from the public service, what are the reasons today that can force a civil servant to leave? Le Figaro takes stock.

Unlike private sector personnel, the situation of civil servants is not governed by a contract: civil servants are placed under a public law regime. Their status, enshrined in the general civil service code (CGFP), is determined by law and regulation. Reputed to be indestructible once established, civil service agents do benefit from a “guarantee obliging the administration to find the civil servant a job corresponding to their grade in the event of their position being abolished”, specifies the vie-publique site. However, it is “totally wrong” to believe that a civil servant has his job guaranteed for life, says Mylène Jacquot, general secretary of the Union of Federations of Civil Servants and Assimilated People of the CFDT (UFFA-CDFT).

Also read: Why civil servants work less than private sector employees

There are in fact several reasons why the employer can unilaterally end the career of a civil servant. Already, professional inadequacy or disciplinary reasons and other professional misconduct, as mentioned by the Minister of Transformation and the Public Service. The first is a system “very poorly defined and above all extremely poorly applied”, judged the minister on France Inter. In 2022, out of 2.5 million state civil service agents, only thirteen were dismissed for “professional insufficiency” and 222 for disciplinary reasons, according to the General Directorate of Administration and Civil Service.

It is also “a procedure which is partly based on arbitrariness, not on clearly established facts as in the case of dismissal for professional misconduct”, criticizes Olivier Bouis, the deputy secretary general of the General Federation of Force Civil Servants. Worker (FGF-FO). “The notion of insufficiency does not require a fault but personal appreciation, the opposite of the idea behind the general status of civil servants which is to counter arbitrariness,” he adds.

Furthermore, article L553-1 of the CGFP also mentions abandonment of position and refusal of three positions of the same grade. “Civil servants can also be removed from the ranks (ie, removed from the lists of civil servants) for incapacity, a fairly common phenomenon in the hospital or even territorial civil service,” adds Mylène Jacquot. Before adding that “the only cause of dismissal that does not exist is economic dismissal”. During a dismissal, the joint administrative commission (half made up of staff representatives) must be contacted for all reasons for dismissal. “Except in the event of professional inadequacy which requires compliance with the disciplinary procedure,” specifies the UFFA-CDFT.

According to data from the General Directorate of Civil Service Administration, 3,351 sanctions were imposed in 2022 against a state civil service agent, or approximately one agent in 746 sanctioned. Most of the errors concerned incorrectness, violence and insults or moral harassment, or negligence, hierarchical disobedience, irregular absences or abandonment of posts, representing more than half of the total. These actions were mainly punished by warnings, reprimands, and more rarely temporary exclusions from functions or revocations.

If the figures for 2022 may seem low, particularly the number of dismissals for professional inadequacy, the unions surveyed prefer to see them as “a source of satisfaction”. “The low number shows that recruitment is rather well done and that in the event of difficulties (often one-off and explainable), they are accompanied and resolved rather than punished,” says Mylène Jacquot. Same story with FGF-FO. For Olivier Bouis, “there is no reason why a civil servant should not be able to do his job. The entrance exams are difficult, the levels of agent graduates are often higher than the requirements of the positions and upon admission, they are additionally trained for the mission.