The perks of working for EDF or "how heating a swimming pool is cheaper than boiling an egg"

"The real public service scandals" was a recent 40-page pullout in the weekly magazine Marianne, in which some light was shed on a number of issues usually under-reported (or largely ignored) by the mainstream media in France.

Schools, hospitals, the police, La Poste, SNCF and others were treated to a pretty thorough analysis, as was one of the nation's "international stars", the utility giant Électricité de France.

It makes fascinating reading.

Electricity prices for households in France are among the lowest in the European Union, but that could well change over the coming few years with a cumulative hike of around 30 per cent forecast by 2017.

Great!

While the rest of France will have to live with the increase, employees - past and present - of EDF, essentially a "public" company, will retain some level of protection.

Yes EDF is still a "public" company.

Although it pretty much operates to all intents and purposes as what might be perceived a "private" company or "limited liability corporation", the state still retains almost 85 per cent ownership.

Anyway, that's rather an aside.

Or is it?

Because wielding so much potential political influence, surely successive governments (and not just the current one) should at least have tried to put an end to a practice which no longer seems to be warranted but also seems downright illogical and not to say unreasonable: the perks enjoyed by the company and its employees.

Since 1946 the company's 300,000 current and retired employees have benefitted from privileges that might have been equitable when introduced but surely now lack credibility.

There is for example the 90 per cent reduction in the amount they pay for each kilowatt-hour of electricity.

Put another way, as it was in a report from the Cour des comptes or Court of auditors in February 2013, EDF employees pay a price per kilowatt-hour that's 16 times less than the average cost to the public.

Confusing figures perhaps but they all add up.

And there's more.

EDF employees don't just pay lower prices for electricity for their main residences.

Oh no.

If they're lucky enough to own a holiday home, the same benefits apply. And even apparently when they rent a house for a couple of weeks while on vacation.

That annual €74 subcription charge? Waived.

In the end, says Marianne, "at such prices, heating a swimming pool (for EDF employees of course) works out less expensive than boiling an egg (would do for everyone else).

But for justification as to why such advantages have remained at current levels since 1951 for electricity and 1962 for gas (yes, for historical reasons employees at GDF-Suez are also treated as a special case) union bigwig at Confédération française démocratique du travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labour, CFDT) Dominique Bousquebaud,  has the following explanation.

Try not to choke as you read.

"The system compensates for the fact that the salaries in the public sector are lower than those in the private and it helps attract better qualified workers," he says.

"It's a way today to compensate for the lack of profit-sharing that can be found at a high level in all major private companies."

Except, once again as Marianne points out, the Cour des comptes says that in fact salaries at EDF are slightly higher than in the equivalent private sector.

There again what does the country's body for auditing public institutions know?

If you want to read more about the tax breaks, the money lost to social security and how successive government have done little or nothing to alter the privileged status of EDF and its employees, try getting your mitts on the May 11-17 copy of Marianne.

Happy reading.

Now does anyone know of an opening at EDF?

Xavier Bertrand's slip of the tongue "in defence" of Fat Cat salaries

Ah what would the world be without the occasional political gaffe?

The previous centre-right led Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) government was full of ministers capable of delivering a howler or two.

Former justice minister Rachida Dati proved herself to be adept at unintentional sexual references when speaking of "oral sex" ("fellation") rather than "inflation" during an interview on foreign investment funds.

Her slip up made the subject so much more...er...interesting.

And on another occasion she managed to introduce "dildo" ("gode") rather than "code" (of conduct) into an interview about  laicity and Islam.

Dati wasn't alone of course. There was also Frédéric Lefebvre the (wait for it) junior minister for trade, small and medium enterprises, tourism, services, liberal professions and consumption (where was the kitchen sink?) who showed his literary prowess when asked which classic French work had made the biggest impact on him.

Sadly Lefebvre came up with the ready-to-wear clothes company "Zadig ET Voltaire" rather than "Zadig BY Voltaire.

And let's not forget Nadine Morano (who could?) when...well, she said just about anything that came into her mind or struck her fancy but perhaps the most memorable was  confusing "Renaud" the singer and "Renault" the car manufacturer.

Mary Hopkins time:

                        "Those were the days my friend,
                        We thought they'd never end."

The new government hasn't quite got into its stride yet, but that doesn't matter.

The new opposition - or the former government if you like - is proving itself to be well up to the job of maintaining a strangehold on the art of delivering a lapsus linguae.

More on than in a moment.

First some background.

The recently-elected French president, François Hollande, is on something of an exemplary cost-cutting exercise.

One of his first decisions was to reduce ministers' pay by around a third.

It was a campaign promise and one he "made good on" as soon as the new 34-strong government was named.

Next up is the pledge to cap the salaries given to the big cheeses of companies which are state-controlled or, in the case of nuclear power plant builder Areva or utility giant EDF, it still has a majority stake.

The government is apparently still working out the fine print but is expected to announce in mid-June that top company executives' pay will be limited to 20 times that of the lowest paid worker.

An end, in part, to the so-called fat cat syndrome in companies such as EDF (84 state-owned) where CEO Henri Proglio reportedly earned a miserly €1.6 million in 2011.

Of course some might try to argue that setting a "maximum salary" will make it difficult for state-owned companies to attract top talent and it'll be nigh on impossible to impose on the private sector.

But few could argue against the injustice that exists between some top earners and those at the opposite end of the scale.

Well that's unless you happen to be a Xavier Bertrand, the former minister for labour, social affairs and solidarity in the last government under prime minister François Fillon.

Xavier Bertrand (screenshot Europe 1 interview)

Bertrand was the invited guest on Europe 1 radio on Thursday morning and perhaps revealed a little more than he intended - albeit by means of a slip-of-the-tongue - about the thinking behind the previous government's attitude.

"I've always been in favour of excessive salaries (for top executives) " he told journalist Jean-Pierre Elkabbach.

"I said as much when I was a member of the previous government and I'm not going to change my mind now."

Elkabbach, seasoned journalist that he is, interrupted just to make sure he had heard correctly and in so doing allowed Bertrand to correct his mistake.

"Always in favour of excessive salaries?" questioned Elkabbach.

"Ah certainly not," replied Bertrand calmly, realising his error.

"I've always been in favour of limiting excesses (of payment)," he said.

"Whether it's in a period of crisis or not, it's always necessary to set a good example."

Ah, it's so good to hear and see that some things about the UMP haven't changed.

A French melon-powered power plant

Do you like melons? Tasty aren't they?

Sweet when ripe, and refreshing.

North American "cantaloupes" (from Wikipedia, USDA photo by Scott Bauer. Image Number K7355-11.)

You've got to be careful about storing them though because apparently their pungent pong can permeate other food and you've probably also noticed how their remains can stink out a kitchen when left in the bin.

Something to do with the amount of methane melons produce when they decompose - just like all fruit really.

The company Boyer S.A Philibon in the southwestern département of Tarn et Garonne knows all about that.

It's one of France's biggest producers and packers of melons and its processing station is in the town of Moissac.

But Boyer S.A also has a huge waste problem in the shape of rotten melons - 1,800 tonnes of them annually.

So earlier this year it called in the experts, turning to the Belgian-based company GreenWatt, a specialist in building, designing and maintaining biogas plants and the fruits (ouch) of the two companies collaboration will be unveiled on Friday.

That's when France's first biogas plant or anaerobic digester will open.

And it'll apparently be able to produce enough hot water for the whole of the Boyer S.A site as well as the equivalent of electricity for 150 homes which it'll sell back to the country's largest utility company Électricité de France.

Not bad going for a load of mouldy fruit, and very green to boot.

So forget nuclear, coal, hydro-electric, thermal, wind and solar power.

The future is melon - well at least as far as Boyer S.A is concerned.

EDF's final demand for zero euros - "pay up or risk being cut off"

Électricité de France, or EDF as it seems to prefer being called, might well be the world's largest utility company and its British subsidiary truly proud to be "powering the London 2012 Games" but that doesn't prevent it from making a complete arse of itself back home in France.

(screenshot from EDF commercial)

Yes, no matter how international it might be hiding behind those initials, EDF is, at its core, French.

And that means adding a totally new dimension to the way in which client relations are defined and conducted.

After all in France the customer is only sometimes king.

Consider the case of Jérémy Chassagne.

He lives with his girlfriend in the southwest of France, not far from the village of Roaillan in a house which the regional daily Sud Ouest describes as being "lost in the middle of vineyards."

It's in an area famous for its Graves Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) wines and well worth a visit, but that's another matter entirely.

Chassagne pays his bills regularly but when the most recent one from EDF plopped through his letterbox he and his girlfriend were away and, as he told the paper, he was a little late in sending the cheque.

That meant of course that EDF sent him a reminder with the standard "request to disregard this letter if payment has already been made."

As it was obvious to Chassagne that the two letters had crossed in the post, that's exactly what he did.

All well and good, except last week he received a final demand from EDF telling him to pay his bill or risk being cut off.

How exactly he is supposed to pay though, has left him in something of a quandary.

You see, it's obvious from the amount at the end of the letter that EDF has already received his cheque, because the final demand is for precisely €0.

That's right, nothing, nada, niente or rien if you like.

"It's crazy and we're not sure what to do," he told the paper.

"We could wait and see whether EDF actually follows through with its threat to cut us off but that would probably mean we would have to pay a charge to be reconnected," he continued.

"Or we could send a cheque for €0 which is what my father (a retired EDF employee who obviously knows what he's talking about) advised us to do."

He's still waiting to hear again from EDF.

Henri Proglio's two-salary U-turn

The recently-confirmed new boss of the French utility giant, Electricité de France (EDF), has agreed to relinquish his rights to claim a second salary with his old company, the multinational Veolia, where he remains chairman of the board.

While his decision has effectively put an end to the debate over the salary controversy, there's now a new confab over a conflict of interests and whether he should be doing two jobs: one at the mainly (almost 85 per cent) state-owned company EDF and the other at the privatised Veolia.

And to many, the French government would appear to be sending out mixed messages as to where exactly it stands on the issue.

You might remember the story out of France last week about this country's government saying that Proglio, who was confirmed as the boss of EDF on Wednesday, would in fact be entitled to two salaries rather than one.

In short he would get €1.6 a year for his new job and retain a paid position of €450,000 a year at Veolia, the company where he was to remain chairman of the board.

The government appeared to be backtracking on its previous promise not to support a double-salary with among others both the finance minister, Christine Lagarde, and the minister of the budget, Eric Woerth, "explaining" why the decision was now justified.

Hardly the most credible of positions for Lagarde, who had promised back in November when Proglio was nominated for the job that there was "no question of overlapping of remuneration and therefore he would receive a single salary."

Pragmatic politics at its best perhaps from the finance minister.

A day after his confirmation, Proglio made things much easier for Lagarde (and the rest of the government) by "choosing" to give up on the smaller of the two salaries, although there was plenty of conjecture that Nicolas Sarkozy, had put pressure on the man who had supported him in his successful bid to become president in 2007.

So the end of the story - not.

Because of course it's one that won't go away and which over the weekend took on another dimension with calls from opposition party leaders for Proglio to cut completely all ties with Veolia.

Among them was François Bayrou, the leader of the centre party Mouvement démocrate (Democratic Movement, MoDem).

"When you're the boss of a public company, you should keep in mind the interests of the public," he said on national radio.

"And when you head up a very large private company you have to defend the interests of the shareholders," he continued.

"This creates a dual allegiance that is unbearable, and which is a complete contradiction to everything we have done in France for decades."

And what do you know, the French government also seemed to be preparing the ground to make it easier for Proglio to give up all links with Veolia with both Lagarde and Woerth returning to their original positions - sort of.

"It's not a situation that should last forever," said Lagarde on Sunday.

"He (Proglio) recognised that when he appeared before (parliamentary) commissions," she added.

A sentiment echoed by Woerth who also maintained that holding two jobs couldn't be a long-term solution.

"When you're in a business which has international contracts, it requires keeping in constant contacts with clients, and not having to time to do other things," he said.

"For me it's a temporary situation," he added.

All of which could make it easier as far as Marie-George Buffet; the leader of the Parti communiste français (French Communist Party, PCF), is concerned for Sarkozy to appear to "save the day" so-to-speak and make the announcement, should he so wish, that the boss of EDF will no longer have a role in Veolia.

The French president is due to appear on prime time television on Monday evening for an extensive interview and to answer questions from selected viewers - an ideal chance for him to express his thoughts on the matter, according to Buffet.

"It's entirely possible that he will make such an announcement because we've already seen how many times both Christine Lagarde and now Eric Woerth have changed their minds," she said on the Canal + news magazine La Matinale on Monday morning.

"And who's to say that Sarkozy won't suddenly 'discover' that it's completely scandalous that Proglio had a double salary and a double responsibility," she added.

EDF's Henri Proglio - the man with a Fat Cat salary

....and two jobs

It might only have been worth a one-liner in the middle of the broadcast on TF1's prime time news on Tuesday, but confirmation that Henri Proglio, the recently-appointed big cheese at the French utility giant, Electricité de France (EDF) would in fact be receiving a double salary, has nonetheless created the expected polemic here in France.

Nominated as president of the company last November, Proglio was officially named CEO on Wednesday and with the job comes a modest annual salary of €1.6.

But that isn't the only monthly income the 60-year-old will be able to enjoy because he'll be retaining a position in his previous company, the French multinational Veolia as chairman of the board for which he'll rake in another €450,000 annually.

Yes that's right. The man will be earning a cool €2 million a year because "He has two responsibilities and, therefore two salaries," as the minister of the budget Eric Woerth explains.

"And in reality, the sum of salaries is equal to what he earned before, so he (Proglio) hasn't actually had an increase in income," Woerth maintains.

The argument put forward by both Woerth and his government colleague, the finance minister Christine Lagarde, to justify why the government supports the double salary, and that Proglio is worth every cent he's going to be paid runs along the lines of stressing that it's not really that much money when you make a direct comparison with other countries.

"The salary is well behind that being paid to those in German, Italian or British-owned rivals," says Lagarde.

"And when you look at the earnings of those heading companies quoted on the CAC 40 it only puts him in 18th or 19th place."

But wait, what did Lagarde say back in November when Proglio was nominated for the job?

Ah yes something very much along the lines of there being "no question of overlapping of remuneration and therefore he would receive a single salary."

While government ministers have defended the double salary, perhaps the last word on the subject (for the moment) should be left to Aurélie Filippetti, the national secretary of the opposition Socialist party, who probably sums up best what many of those who don't agree with the move have been expressing.

"The combination of mandates, whether in politics or business, is definitely a very bad tradition in France," she says.

"Mr. Proglio presides over the destinies of two groups with a total of nearly 500,000 employees and combined sales of more than €100 billion," she continues.

And when it comes to the claim that the "best" need to be rewarded for the jobs they're doing, Filippetti doesn't mince her words.

"We can no longer bear to hear this completely fallacious reasoning," she says.

"What exists is actually a very exclusive club of privileged people who designate each other to positions of power as though they were playing musical chairs just like the Ancien régime."

EDF's seasonal electricity bill greeting overcharge

Electricity doesn't come cheap, even in a country where most of it is produced by nuclear power stations.

But in a couple of cases this past week two customers of the French utility company, Electricité de France (EDF) had rather a nasty Christmas surprise.

Perhaps the energy giant was peeved by the French telecommunications company, France Télécom - Orange (FT), hogging the national headlines for presenting some of its mobile 'phone customers with astronomical bills, and although the Yuletide "gifts" it sent its two users pale in comparison to the €159,000 FT charged one of its clients, EDF almost managed to put a dampener on festive spirits.

The first case involved a retired woman in the south-western town of Orthez, who just days before Christmas Eve received a letter from her bank informing her that a payment for her electricity bill of a whopping €10,000 (and 23 centimes to be exact) had been rejected because of "insufficient funds".

An understandable shock to the woman (who wished to remain anonymous) especially as she said that her "annual consumption amounted to around €650" and made all the more unpalatable by the fact that she pays her bills by direct debit.

"Luckily I was sitting down when I received the call (from the bank)," she said.

"I started shaking and was completely disoriented," she continued.

"It's the sort of thing you see on television happening to others and all I can say is that people check their bills," she said.

Sound advice without doubt, and even though EDF has admitted there was a "rare error" in its calculations guess what?

In the very same week another customer - again in the south-west of France, but in a different town, also made the headlines when he received a bill for... wait for it...just over €69,000.

It was an annual bill but one that nonetheless surprised Matthieu Moulierac, a pâtissier in the town of Saint-Émilion, who said he was used to paying far less.

"On average the annual bill is between two thousand and two thousand five hundred euros," he told French news, seemingly unworried at being massively overcharged as EDF had also enclosed a letter apologising for the mistake and informing him that he would shortly be receiving an amended bill for the right amount.

As far as Moulierac was concerned, the story should have ended there, except when he took a look at this bank statement, lo and behold the amount had already been deducted from his account.

He too pays his EDF bills by direct debit and the bank had apparently already authorised the payment.

A quick 'phone call rectified the error initially made by EDF and then compounded by the bank.

But although Moulierac's Christmas and New Year were not soured by the prospect of having to battle to correct a mistake that was in no way of his making, those words of wisdom from the woman at the centre of the first tale ring rather true - and not just at this time of the year.

Happy Holidays.