Paris (AFP)

"Breakage" of missions, downsizing, closure of treasuries, suffering at work: public finance officials, the heart of state management, have again demonstrated Thursday in Paris against the government project to reorganize their services .

Between "20% and 25%" of them were on strike, according to a point established in the middle of the afternoon by the inter-union of the General Directorate of Public Finance (DGFiP), which includes Solidaires, CGT, FO and CFDT-CFTC.

Bercy announced a 20% strike rate against 36% on the last day of action on September 16th.

"Nearly 2,000" agents according to the Inter, some from Britain, Normandy and New Aquitaine, gathered at Place de la Nation at midday, said an AFP journalist. Rallies also took place in the regions, according to the unions.

In Paris, protesters converged on Bercy, pushing the sarcastic homage to the Minister of Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin, under a tide of colorful flags and vests bearing the stamp of their unions.

All of Bercy's administrations were represented in support of their finance colleagues, including customs officers, who fear that many of their responsibilities will disappear or be transferred to the detriment of companies that they "will no longer be able to protect against unfair competition", argued Philippe Bock (Solidaires Douanes).

- "Even more the bone tax" -

"Even more the tax on the bones", proclaimed black banners on bottom of skull. Others denounced the "scrap" of public services and the DGFiP, or called for the "maintenance of local services" of public finances, whose missions, apart from the collection of taxes, include control, management and Expenditure execution at all levels of the state and communities.

Before the departure of the DGFiP procession and join that of the actors of the health, the general secretary of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, came to bring his "support" to the agents of the public finances. He denounced "a lack of generalized social dialogue" and "a contempt" of "all those who oppose" the policy of the government, "who speaks of consultation and said he heard but continues as if nothing had happened" .

At the DGFiP, "we see clearly that the digital is used as a pretext to suppress jobs, when we know that there are still 15 million users who go every year in the treasuries to obtain information", a- he stressed.

Martinez has made an appointment "public and private on December 5", day of action interprofessional against pension reform.

The restructuring project of the DGFiP provides for the establishment of a new network of proximity, which the unions describe as "lure". It would involve multiplying "points of contact" in rural and peri-urban areas: public service houses, itinerant agents and even buses, taking over from the current public finance centers.

In addition to this network, the unions denounce the privatization or transfer of some of the DGFiP's tasks, such as the collection of taxes by tobacconists.

The Ministry of Public Accounts has planned the removal of 5,800 jobs between 2020 and 2022 in Bercy, including 4,800 on the perimeter of the DGFiP, which employs 110,000 agents and has lost 40,000 jobs since 2002.

It intends to remove 1,600 treasuries out of 2,000 today, responsible for the management and control of local authorities, and to which are added 2,000 public finance centers, responsible for the tax of individuals and businesses in particular, according Anne Guyot-Welke , National Secretary of Solidaires Finances Publiques.

At a press conference, Mrs Guyot-Welke warned against "a social climate never seen (within the DGFiP) with real suffering at the work of agents despised by the government" and "the risk of services public low cost with disastrous consequences for users too. "

His counterpart, Hélène Fauvel, lamented "a facade display and a double government discourse that suggests that we fight against some excesses while destroying the real means to achieve it."

© 2019 AFP