PARIS 1 Jul (ANA) - At least 30 French 'ghost' civil servants have been paid more than £ 22 million to do absolutely nothing for the last three decades, a new financial report has revealed.

 

The astonishing revelation is the latest to emerge in a country that is notorious for its massively expensive, job-for-life public service.

 

Auditors working in the Provence-Alps-Riviera region, in the south of the country, published their findings last week.

 

They show that € 1 million - the equivalent of £ 897,000 - went out to the 'ghost officials' every year since 1989, despite their actual jobs being phased out.

 

One civil servant - a former rugby star who played for Toulon - ran a restaurant rather than going to a council office every day.

 

He was summoned on at least one occasion to explain his business because it appeared 'incompatible with the status of a civil servant,' but the salary cheques kept arriving.

 

The official report - which was leaked to the Var Matin newspaper - suggested that others had an official retirement date and saw no reason to resign until it arrived.

 

All of the taxpayer-funded wages included bonuses for automatic promotions, and for pay rises each year.

 

Referring to the Var department on the south coast of France, the report states that 'the management centre in the Var still pays some 30 agents who aren't employed.'

 

The farce stems from a law that obliges councils to carry on paying staff even if a reorganisation in working arrangements makes them redundant.

 

Those involved in the Var once worked in council buildings in Toulon, Cogolin and La Seyne-sur-Mer.

 

None of the workers involved are facing disciplinary problems for hanging on to non-existent jobs, although the Var council is now likely to try and get them off the payroll.

 

France has traditionally prided itself on a civil service operation that employs around 20 per cent of the workforce.

 

But the escalating cost and lack of productivity has made the current President, Emmanuel Macon, determined to cut billions from public spending.

 

This is one of the reasons for widespread disorder organised by the anti-government Yellow Vests movement.

 

The French have traditionally taken to the streets to oppose any politician who wants to touch their civil service jobs.

 

In another story that provoked anger in 2016, it emerged that another French civil servant was paid more than £ 450,000 over a decade for doing nothing.

 

The 55-year-old had been banking a £ 3,331-a-month salary while using the official title of 'general director of services' at Sainte-Savine town hall, near Troyes, in eastern France.

 

Yves Labouré, from the civil service management centre in Aube said at the time: 'He's not been sitting on his hands doing nothing.'

 

And in a similar story in 2015, a Frenchman was paid more than £ 4,500 a month by state rail operator SNCF over 12 months despite not working a single day.(ANA)

FA/ANA/1 July 2019--------