The French Civil Service (French: fonction publique française) is the set of civil servants (fonctionnaires) working for the French government.
Not all employees of the state and public institutions or corporations are civil servants; however, the media often incorrectly equate "government employee" or "employee of a public corporation" with fonctionnaire. For instance, most employees of RATP and SNCF (road and rail transport authorities) are not civil servants. The Civil Service is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as the administration, but, properly speaking, the administration is the compound of public administrations and public administrative establishments, not their employees.
About half of the civil servants are employed in the French public education system.
Most employment positions in the French civil service are open to citizens of the European Union. Others, especially in police and justice, are specifically reserved for nationals, while a minority are open regardless of citizenship.
Read more about French Civil Service: Divisions, Duties, Recruitment and Career, Pay, Statistics
Famous quotes containing the words french, civil and/or service:
“Salad is roughage and a French idea.”
—U.S. grandmother. As quoted in “Once a Tramp, Always ...,” by M.F.K. Fisher (1969)
“Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.”
—Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke Wellington (1769–1852)