Retirement Incentive Plan: More Haste than Speed

At a meeting with unions on Tuesday, October 7, at which the CEO was conspicuous by his absence, management decided to press ahead with its cost-cutting plan despite warnings from all the trade unions.

As management readied plans to cut 70 jobs through a retirement incentive package, the lawyers consulted by the unions and the labor inspector agreed: the project presents significant legal risks due to its close resemblance to a French jobs reduction plan. At Tuesday’s meeting, management, which had clearly not studied the legal aspects of its plan, requested a suspension of the meeting in order to carry out its own legal consultation: better late than never! They came back to us half an hour later with a response that was essentially: no problem!

After having pointed out numerous inadequacies, contradictions, and concrete problems posed by the conditions for participation in the plan, the trade unions refused to issue an opinion that, even negative, would have allowed the AFP to move ahead with its plan. But management no longer seems to be averse to forcing things through (getting rid of desktop computers, reorganizations, the closure of Nicosia, IA at all costs), decided to consider our refusal to vote as a negative opinion and to move forward with the retirement incentive plan.

Why go ahead despite the risks? Either management is betting that its legal analysis would prevail in court, or that none of the "voluntary" retirees who leave will then sue the Agency for more money. In either case, management is indeed betting, and this one seems extremely risky to us. Hasn’t management learned the lessons of the? Given that many journalists still haven’t obtained a solution regarding AFP’s pension contributions while they worked abroad, and are threatening legal action, can AFP really afford to open a new front with a hastily cobbled-together plan? Not to mention the consequences of not replacing those who leave, which management seems to consider secondary for the time being.

Between a rock and a hard place

Faced with management’s fait accompli, trade unions now find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Should they accept defeat in not obtaining the slightest commitment from management about ensuring those who remain won’t be overburdened with work? Should they not react to an apparently illegal situation for fear of being seen as calling for a formal voluntary departure plan that would provide those guarantees? For several months, SUD has been warning about the false premises of management’s plan. In the end, our intuition was correct: from the legal threshold of 10 job cuts (and not only following layoffs) over a period of 30 days an employer cannot escape the constraints linked to a job cuts plan.

No, SUD is not calling for a redundancy plan. But neither are we in favor of job cuts being carried out without any of the legal guarantees to protect workers. And certainly we are not in favor of cuts that management hasn’t shown can be made without disrupting and weakening the Agency’s ability to carry out its public interest mission.

Nor, as management has done, is SUD dismissing the possibility of seeking additional public support at a time of turbulence for AFP. Particularly as the French state has not fully compensated the cost of our public interest mission for years.

And SUD does not consider, like our management does according to Le Monde, that asking for more state aid would weaken our independence. If AFP’s independence were measured solely by public financing, then let’s face it: with more than 40% of our budget coming from the French state (around €142 million including subscriptions), we’re already a long way from being independent.

And SUD does not consider, like the management quoted in Le Monde, that asking for state aid would weaken our independence. If AFP’s independence were measured by public support, then let’s face it: with more than 40% of our budget coming from the French state (around €142 million including the MIG and its subscriptions), we are not independent, at least financially.

While this retirement incentive plan may, according to some, seem like a lesser evil today, it seems particularly dangerous for the future. Especially when the CEO who makes a decision today is often not the one who will bear the consequences later. Fabrice Fries should remember that as he had to settle – through wage increases and the payment of several million euros in arrears – after his predecessor Emmanuel Hoog chose to no longer practice sector-wide pay rises without following the correct procedure.

Risky, toxic, and, above all, dangerous

As a responsible trade union organization, SUD cannot turn a blind eye to the legal risk of the current retirement incentive plan presented on September 26 and October 7 to the elected members of the CSE. Management undoubtedly hoped that no one would notice it, and once we did, it chose to act as if the risk did not exist.

SUD considers this plan risky, toxic, and, above all, dangerous for the Agency. Without denying the commercial difficulties that lie ahead in 2026, it must also be remembered that AFP is not on the verge of bankruptcy and that the Agency’s accounts are not empty. Far from it, according to the Sextant firm, which provides financial expertise for the CSE. So don’t get taken in by idle speculation around the water cooler that we may not get our year-end bonuses.

SUD calls on employees to pull themselves together and mobilize to defend their jobs and work conditions. We must reject the supposed inevitability of a financial crisis that will soon engulf us. We must reject massive job cuts and defend the relevance of our Agency in order to properly pursue our public interest mission.

Paris, October 9, 2025
SUD-AFP (Solidarity-Unity-Democracy)