NAO 2026: It’s high time to rebuild our purchasing power

SUD recently calculated that we’ve lost over 13% of our purchasing power since Fabrice Fries took the helm at AFP in 2018 (read the tract here). This figure takes into account the meager general salary increases we have received. Annual wage talks (NAO) began last week. Restoring our purchasing power is a matter of urgency. Otherwise, we will continue to see a lasting decline in our financial standing, with direct consequences for our pensions, which will also be dragged down. Naturally, this catch-up process will not happen in a single year – it will take years. We must therefore move beyond a short-term mindset. Thinking only in terms of one year at a time will not allow us to make up for the ground we have lost. That is why we need a new "Grand Accord": a multi-year deal that restores what we have lost to inflation.

On June 24, management held the first in a series of mandatory annual meetings with unions regarding wages and working hours (NAO). As usual, we were treated to the standard spiel: management would like to raise wages. Then came the reminder about the Agency’s economic situation and the now-familiar refrain – that it is too early to say anything definitive because next year’s budget has not yet been finalized.

We know this scenario well. We know how it ends. Come autumn, when it is time to wrap up negotiations, management will explain that there is no room in the budget for across-the-board raises: "Sorry."

Budgetary adjustment variable: that’s us!

This approach must stop. Preserving and improving employees’ purchasing power cannot be left out of the budgeting process. As long as that remains the case, we will continue to face the same roadblocks. Being treated merely as a budgetary adjustment variable is precisely what led us into the current situation.

SUD proposes that unions and management agree on a clear principle: salary increases that consistently outpace inflation over a five-year period.

SUD puts forward a concrete proposal: a general annual pay rise of 2.5% for five years, supplemented by the average annual consumer price inflation rate recorded by INSEE for the preceding year. Under this method, for 2025, we would have received a 3.4% increase on May 1, 2026 (2.5% + 0.9%).

Such a mechanism would result in a salary increase of approximately 13% over the period, excluding inflation-linked adjustments.

Let’s not dismiss this proposal as unrealistic. Given the extent of the loss in purchasing power we have suffered, the only way to restore it is to implement a catch-up process over the long term, allowing the Agency’s finances time to adjust.

A new "Grand Accord" to restore our purchasing power

Every year, management claims there is no room for maneuver regarding across-the-board pay raises; this is because budgetary decisions have already been made elsewhere – prioritizing job creation, targeted investments, and so on. Our salaries – and our purchasing power – must be factored into this budgetary equation, just as the expansion of our reporting network and AI investments are.

A multi-year agreement is entirely realistic. State funding for AFP is itself based on a five-year agreement: the Aims and Means Contract (COM).

It is worth recalling that the current COM was built on a budgetary trajectory that – at Fabrice Fries’s proposal – included no provision for across-the-board salary increases. We have not reached this point by accident.

The situation will not change on its own. It will only change if we mobilize collectively to force taking a different path: concluding a new "Grand Accord" to restore our purchasing power.

Here are our other NAO demands

* Improved automatic progression within career plans:

Journalists: automatic move to category RED 5+ after eight years in category 5; then to category 6 after 10 years in category 5+;
EP: automatic move to coefficient 193 in career path 2 and to coefficient 203 in career path 3, after 5 years at the lower coefficient;
OT: automatic move to coefficients 86 and 98 after 5 years at the lower coefficient;
CA: automatic move to coefficient 323 after 5 years at the lower coefficient;
CT: automatic move to coefficient 120 after 5 years at the lower coefficient.
*Automatic progression without claw-back of any performance bonus.

* Creation of new seniority bonus levels at 25, 30, and 35 years, with an additional 1% increase for each level.

* Creation of a joint committee to establish allocation criteria for one-shot bonuses and ensure greater transparency in their distribution.

* Inclusion of a commitment in the NAO agreement for management to achieve a balance between professional categories in the allocation of one-shot bonuses in the medium term.

* Doubling of the €10 bonus for working on Sunday and public holidays, and extension of the same bonus to Saturdays worked.

* Compensation of €50 starting from the third weekend worked per month.

* Increase in the standard on-call pay rate to €30, and the on-call pay rate involving editorial monitoring duties to €50.

* Increase in the mileage allowance: promised in 2024, the measure never came into effect. It would primarily benefit freelance journalists, who are among the most precariously employed staff.

* Implementation of gynecological health leave for:
o painful or pathological menstruation
o stages of menopause
o the aftermath of pregnancy termination

* Allowing time off for hospital, clinic, or specialist appointments without having to use paid leave or compensatory time off.

* Additional rest days as compensation for employees on forfait jours contracts who wish to take partial parental leave and must switch to an hourly system for that period; alternatively, implementation of a reduced-day forfait jours contract.

* Inclusion of the Parliamentary bonus (granted to certain seconded journalists) in Appendix 15 of the collective bargaining agreement, which lists all active bonuses.

* Partial retention of the Video and Photo bonus upon a change of position (following, for example, the same terms as role-based bonuses: i.e., 30% after 3 years and 50% after 4.5 years). SUD considers these Video and Photo bonuses compensate for specific skills and that their loss acts as a barrier to professional mobility.

The NAO is set to continue until November. However, it is essential that employees demonstrate, right from the return from the summer break, that they will not accept a lasting loss of purchasing power.

Paris, June 30, 2026

SUD-AFP (Solidarity-Unity-Democracy)