Eric Dupond-Moretti announces revaluation of status of prison administration agents

Prison supervisors will go from category C to category B of the public service, and officers in category B in category A, with better wages.

MO12345lemonde with AFP

The Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti announced on Tuesday February 21 in Agen a “historic” evolution of the status of all prison agents, long claimed by the unions of prison guards but postponed in 2019 by the government. “From the 1 er January 2024, the body of penitentiary supervisors will pass in category B [of the public service] and that of officers in category A,” announced the minister before the 215 E Promotion of the National School of Penitentiary Administration (ENAP).

Recruitment crisis

“It is a historical advance because for a long time claimed and fully deserved, you who embody the third security force of our country” with 40,000 agents, he added. This reform aims to improve “the attractiveness” of this administration, which has been facing a recruitment crisis for several years while thousands of jobs are to be filled. It will imply “an index and compensation revaluation,” said Dupond-Moretti. According to the Chancellery, a decision on this subject should be made in May or June.

In January 2019, this same statutory evolution, then defended by several trade union organizations, had been refused by the Keeper of the Seals Nicole Belloubet on the grounds that “would have the effect of prohibiting the [as supervisors] of people n ‘Having not the baccalaureate “, a diploma essential for a category B position. About a third of the current prison supervisors do not have this diploma, according to the ministry.

The Minister, however, reported to the new ENAP promotion that the reform would make it possible to organize recruitments of contractual agents, of category C, without the compulsory bac, to “assist” the prison supervisors. They could ensure, according to the Chancellery, specific missions such as the surveillance of visiting rooms.

/Media reports cited above.