Why almost a third of the credits allocated to certain ministries finance pensions
Quick Look
An annex to the 2027 draft budget reveals that 32% of the Ministry of National Education's appropriations, or 28.5 billion euros out of 89.1 billion, finance civil servants' pensions, a rate stable for ten years according to the government, which cites a demographic imbalance in the public service as the main explanation.
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Why It Matters
The government has published an annex to the draft finance law for 2027 aimed at increasing transparency on the share of ministerial appropriations devoted to financing civil servants' pensions, by including for the first time employee contributions in the calculation.
A document attached to the finance bill which does not go unnoticed. An annex to the 2027 draft budget, published Tuesday October 13 by the government, estimates that nearly a third of the appropriations of certain ministries, including that of National Education, finance the pensions of civil servants. A figure already known to economists but which was, until now, "hardly readable" for the general public, writes the government in this annex.
At the Ministry of National Education, 28.5 billion euros out of 89.1 billion in credits planned for 2027, or 32%, will be paid in 2027 to the account which finances pensions, describes this document. This percentage "has been approximately stable over the last ten years", reports the office of the Minister of Public Accounts, David Amiel. And for good reason, “pension expenses have increased [in recent years], but so has the ministry’s budget,” continues the same source.
“Transparency”
In detail, of the 89.1 billion euros in budgetary credits allocated to the Ministry of National Education, 84.6 billion are personnel expenses, including 25.1 billion in employer contributions to civil servant retirement pensions and 3.4 billion in employee contributions to civil servant retirement pensions.
The proportion of credits financing pensions is also 30% at the Ministry of the Interior and around 13% on average for all ministries. Employer contributions were already mentioned in previous documents annexed to the budget, but the Ministry of Public Accounts claims to have, in an exercise of "transparency", added employee contributions for the first time to the calculation of the share dedicated to pensions in the ministries' budget.
Growing share of contract workers
These high rates are mainly explained by the demographic imbalance in the public sector, with less than one contributor per retiree compared to 1.5 for private sector employees. The State must then correct this imbalance, which had a cost of 41.5 billion euros in 2025, reports the government.
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
The government will continue its budgetary transparency efforts by including other categories of social expenditure in the annexes of the next finance bills.
Likely · Within months
Open Questions
- What measures is the government considering to reduce the share of the budget devoted to long-term pensions?
- How will this increased transparency be received by public service unions?
- Will this calculation methodology be applied retroactively to previous years to allow historical comparisons?
