Civil service inaugurates charter for diversity

In early December 2008, the French Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission and the Ministry for the Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Service signed a charter for promoting diversity. While this charter was adopted in the civil service, a ‘diversity label’ for companies was also created and came into effect in January 2009. Overall, the charter has been welcomed by the social partners as it promotes social cohesion and gender equality.

On 2 December 2008, the French Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission (Haute autorité de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l’égalité, HALDE) (FR0605049I) and the Ministry for the Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Service ( Ministère du budget, des comptes publics et de la fonction publique) signed a charter that takes the form of a moral commitment to promote public services which ‘reflect the population more accurately’. The aim of the charter is to urge public services to meet their role regarding integration and social promotion by recruiting staff in line with needs without discrimination. The Secretary of State for the Civil Service, André Santini, emphasised that, through this ‘moral and concrete commitment, the administration intends to promote the recruitment of children of immigrants, women, older people and disabled individuals’.

Aim of charter

This charter applies to all three areas of the civil service – central government, local authorities and hospitals – and must show a series of ‘commitments’. Its primary objective is to guide the activities of the civil service and those who work for these services through the promotion of recruitment conditions, careers, raising awareness among staff about discrimination, and also through the dissemination of ‘good practices’.

Composition of charter

The charter is composed of six themes:

• taking action in the area of recruitment in order to promote equal access to all public jobs;

• ensuring that conditions for recruitment meet requirements without discriminating against certain individuals;

• renewing staff careers and guaranteeing equal treatment in all areas of management;

• raising awareness of discrimination and training staff;

• informing the various services in order to disseminate good practice regarding the prevention of discrimination;

• implementing and monitoring the charter in terms of promoting equality in the civil service.

HALDE and the General Directorate for Administration and Civil Service (Direction générale de l’administration et de la fonction publique, DGAFP) will jointly and regularly monitor the implementation of the charter.

Recruitment of civil servants

The central element of this charter concerns, in particular, the recruitment of civil servants. The ministry has emphasised that the system of competitive entrance exams, ‘which ensure equity between candidates’, can also ‘lead to disparity and should be adjusted in order to reflect more accurately the diversity of the population’.

Thus, the Minister for the Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Service, Éric Woerth, announced his desire to go a step further in 2009 by amending the test regarding the general culture in the civil service competitive entrance exams for grades B and C, which is considered to be ‘too academic’ by the Secretary of State for the Civil Service, Mr Santini.

Immigrants and women in civil service

Statistical analysis highlights existing differences in the profile of civil servants: for example, ‘people with one or two immigrant parents are underrepresented in the civil service. This underrepresentation seems slightly greater than that observed in the private sector’. Moreover, despite the high proportion of women (59%) working in the civil service compared with the private sector (43%), the rate of increase of women in high-level positions is very slow. In 2002, women occupied only 13% of senior management positions in the central civil service.

Positive response from social partners

On the trade union side, the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA) welcomed the fact that the ‘issue of diversity is becoming a national priority in what the President of the Republic says’. According to UNSA, diversity is essential for French society as it affects the country’s social cohesion.

Similarly, the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff – General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l’encadrement – confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC) expressed its approval of the announcements made regarding equal opportunities in the workplace. However, it also emphasised the importance of simultaneously completing another important area of change – namely ‘gender equality and balance’ in the workplace.

Diversity label for companies

This new tool for the promotion of equal opportunities has been further enhanced by the introduction, in December 2008, of a ‘diversity label’. The latter aims to encourage companies to commit to diversity and prevent discrimination. The label became operational in January 2009 and is due to be awarded to companies for the first time during the first quarter of 2009.

Christèle Meilland, Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES)