French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a "cultural revolution" to shake up France's archaic civil service yesterday, cutting numbers of employees but raising the pay of those kept on.
He vowed to reduce the number of places at ENA, the exclusive training school for French state functionaries, and he said civil servants should be allowed to choose their job contracts and be better paid for overtime.
"What I am proposing, it's a cultural revolution, a revolution changing the way we think, for changing behavior," Sarkozy said in a speech to civil servants in Nantes, western France.
The government had already floated proposals to cut the number of public sector workers as part of a plan to reduce the budget deficit next year.
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. Public Accounts Minister Eric Woerth has estimated this would result in savings of up to 400 million euros ($550 million) next year.
Sarkozy said the reductions were necessary to help the government pay its bills and to make sure taxpayers money was not being wasted.
In an effort to head off complaints from union leaders, who are already unhappy about his plan to scale back pensions for some public sector workers, Sarkozy said the government would hold talks with them over the next few months.
(China Daily 09/20/2007 page 7)
Vocabulary:
archaic：古老的，陳舊的
（英語點(diǎn)津 Linda 編輯）
About the broadcaster:
Marc Checkley is a freelance journalist and media producer from Auckland, New Zealand. Marc has had an eclectic career in the media/arts, most recently working as a radio journalist for NewstalkZB, New Zealand’s leading news radio network, as a feature writer for Travel Inc, New Nutrition Business (UK) and contributor for Mana Magazine and the Sunday Star Times. Marc is also a passionate arts educator and is involved in various media/theatre projects in his native New Zealand and Singapore where he is currently based. Marc joins the China Daily with support from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
