Contenu du sommaire : Les emplois publics sont-ils accessibles à tous ?

The idea of merit refers to the value and the recognition which can be granted to a person in function of his qualities and to those of his actions. In regards to its origin, it reattaches itself historically and conceptually to the notion of virtue (understood as the disposition to act well) whereas its result is performance (understood as succeeding a task in a measurable manner). Furthermore, on the one hand, virtue is constitutive of the person in a human world made of different beings, performance, on the other, is detachable from the person in a world of individuals. The notion of merit is, then, at odds, because merit belongs to individuals, but not fully. What complicates furthermore the situation is the intervention within democratic societies of parameters of equality, justice and, today, of difference ‑ individuals, being by principal equal and entitled to be treated with justice, beyond their differences. This complicated conceptual situation explains the controversies and doubts about meritocracy.

Following the line of questioning on generational splits in regards to access to qualified employment, this article compares the characteristics of around thirty employees from the public and the private sector from 1982 to 2002, in terms of social origin, sex and education. In the first place, we question the consequences of the contraction of qualified public employment for this age class in regards to access to the employment sector for women and children from working class backgrounds. Secondly, the study of the professional trajectories of the thirty‑odd public and private employees reveals two paradoxical shifts: on one hand, and in 2002 more than in 1982, the social trajectories observed in the public sector are more favourable to women and children from a working class background than those in the private sector; but on the other hand, the public sector, due to its contraction, has lost its role as a social promoter for young graduates out of these social groups.

This article's focuses on sexual inequalities of career in the management of four general directions of two ministries, economic and financial, social, contrasted from the point of view of their feminisation and the types of career. The inquiry is based on a hundred or so life stories of both men and women. Above their family education and the unequal access to senior civil service through the royal route of the ÉNA, the obstacles in the careers of women are detected at the heart of the administration, through the rules of availability, geographical mobility and the homophilic cooptation they imply. Policies of professional equality struggle to modify them but, nonetheless, succeed in creating a greater awareness of the problem.

The results of the investigations carried out by the “Association of French Local Administrators” at the end of the 2009 and in 2010, on a representative sample of the most important territorial employers, shows the under‑representation of women: women represent 10 % of director generals of services and 20 to 25 % on average of deputy director generals (DGA). The explanation for this apparent glass ceiling in the access to top managerial and executive positions is complex. Examination of the pool of prospective director generals shows that career advancement takes place in several steps and that, at each step, an under‑representation of women is to be found. In this context, one should talk, not solely of a glass ceiling but more precisely, of a multitude of inequalities of access under the form of a « pyramid of glass ceiling ».

This article considers relations to time as both situated within a social space and, variable according to class and gender. On the basis of interviews with former ÉNA students on this very topic, we show that the hierarchy of positions is, for them, a reverse hierarchy based on the control of time they permit. Succeeding, in their opinion, involves having dispositions in time management which permit to avoid arbitration between their professional work and the rest of life, even though placed in a temporal context characterised by its demands on a great amount of availability for work. Following this, the situation for women with children constrains their expression of this « temporal aristocracy ».

Noting that the National School of Administration (ÉNA) has a relatively low percentage of women in its classes, the following article identifies several factors affecting the recruitment process. The lack of parity among students' results mainly from an insufficient number of female candidates but it also questions the nature of the selection tests. It stresses however the success during the course of women once entered into ÉNA. Aknowledging a representative imbalance, the article comes to explain some of the measures implemented by the school to rebalance its recruitment.

The competitive entrance examinations to the National School of Administration, characterized by a high degree of selectivity, are intended to insure the meritocratic recruitment of the high public service. Nevertheless the profile of the admitted people presents, today as yesterday, certain peculiarities which reflect, at least partially, the existence of uneven opportunities of access. Things being what they are, a contextualised analysis of the recent data shows that these disparities are not peculiar to the ÉNA. They fit into a succession of selection landings which pertain to the whole of the school and higher education. The competitive entrance examinations to ÉNA as well as the final ranking represent only the ultimate stage of this process.

In France, local administrators (« administrateurs territoriaux ») occupy the place of directors in the local public service. To get this status, candidates have to pass an entrance exam for an 18 months training program at in INET (National Institute of Territorial Studies). In 2012, INET conducted a survey to have a better knowledge of its students origins. A part of this survey's results is presented in this article. Today there is a parity of men and women among the trainees who also come from all parts of France. However, students from underprivileged social backgrounds still struggle to rise to theses elite positions.

Reserved to candidates from humble background, the ÉNA's integrated preparatory class is a scheme which takes place within the wider fight against inequality of access to senior public service. Based on a comparison between the students profiles of this and other preparation centers but also, with the profiles of the students admitted through the ÉNA's external examination, this research aims at measuring the reality of these inequalities and expose the ways in which this class tries remediates to them. If as it has been said, the CPI of the School consist in “giving more to those who have less”, this article tries to bring an answer to the question of knowing in what its beneficiaries have “less” and how the apparatus gives them “more” to succeed the external eligibility test of admission.

In continuity with studies conducted so far on the « publicisation of diversity » in XXIst century French society, this article analyses its uses in the civil service. How does the development of promotion of diversity contribute to the mutation of civil service? The article responds to this question by examining the extent to which it participates of a neoliberal post-modern State combining both republican heritage and public management. The following hypothesis is that promotion of diversity allows incorporation and subversion of critical perspectives, in particular positions which concern the application of the constitutional requirement of equal access of all citizens to civil service jobs.

Tackling discriminations, which public agents are still often subject to, is inseparable from the promotion of the equality of treatment. In order to consolidate these two essential axis of the action carried out by the Defender of rights, but also in order to give it a new impulse, the new position holder has, from the beginning of his appointment, taken a certain number of decisions of which are here presented the main core ideas.

After the short experience of the third entry track at National School of Administration (ÉNA) between 1983 and 1986, the new third competitive entrance examination made possible the recruitment since 1990, of more than 200 professionals coming from the private sector and civil society, in order to widen the range of profiles of the senior civil service. Contrary to pessimistic forecasts, this new method of recruitment reached its goals of terms of selection (selectivity, social and occupational diversity) and integration. The impact in terms of diversification, and more exactly, hybridization, remains however limited the human resource management is still not adapted. Today as yesterday, the state, which wishes to favor the diversification of the senior civil service has to work on a global project than goes beyond the current situation with this form of competitive examination dedicated to professionals from the private sector and civil society.

The state's wage policy has known important inflexions during the course of the last decade. Parametric adjustments (such as the freeze of index markers, the indexation of lower salaries to the SMIC) and partial actions (such as the reclassification of certain categories) have been adopted, but the more structural reforms of the method of remuneration, even if they were wished for by the state, have not, in reality, come to be. But simultaneously, the state's wage policy has become more categorical. Beyond limited effects on the average purchase power, these changes have had important consequences in the terms of wage hierarchy and career and contribute in explaining the rise of an important discontent on the subject. The whole of these evolutions are being addressed by the trade unions, whose strategies vary, at the different level (central or local), between opposition and accompaniment.

The importance of data processing within public service, and as much in its internal management than in its relations to users, is increasing. The strong externalization of this service is justified by factors which are not all legitimate, and results often in difficulties in management and arguable cost control. These findings should encourage inflections that aim to improve the management of this outsourcing.