Can a public official go to work in the private sector?

If you stop or have stopped definitively or temporarily your activity in the public service for less than 3 years and consider working in the private sector, you must in advance obtain the agreement of your last employer administration.

If you are a public servant, this obligation applies if you temporarily cease your duties as part of a availability (especially for personal convenience or to follow your spouse).

If you are a contractor in CDI: titleContent, this obligation applies if you temporarily cease your duties in connection with a leave for personal convenience.

This obligation also applies if you permanently cease your duties following, in particular, your retirement, resignation, dismissal, termination of contract, etc.

This is true whether you are planning to engage in an activity, whether employed or not, in a company or as a liberal.

Your employer administration is reviewing the compatibility of your future activity in the private sector with your previous functions in the public sector.

The proposed activity must not affect the dignity of your previous duties in the public service. This would be the case, for example, of a staff member wishing to pursue an activity close to a regulated profession, without fulfilling the conditions, in particular diplomas.

The proposed activity must not compromise or jeopardize the normal functioning, independence or neutrality of the public service. This may be the case, for example, where the staff member wishes to carry out an activity very close to his former duties, sometimes in the same geographical area.

The proposed activity must not affect the ethical principles of the public service : impartiality, integrity, probity, secularism, etc.

The planned activity should not lead you to a illegal taking of interest.

You must send a file containing the following documents to your last employer administration:

• Letter expressing your wish to exercise a private activity and to be temporarily placed in a situation in accordance with your status (availability, leave for personal convenience) or to leave your position permanently
• Description of the proposed activity project containing all the useful and detailed information enabling your employer administration to examine your request
• Extract of registration in the National Register of companies (RNE) or copy of the statutes of the organization you wish to join or statutes or draft statutes of the company you wish to set up or take over
• Copy of your contract of employment if you are a contractor.

If your employer administration considers that it does not have all the information necessary to make a decision, it invites you to complete your application within a maximum of 15 days of receipt of your file.

Your employer administration answers you within 2 months.

Failure to reply within that period shall be deemed valid denial.

The decision of your employer administration may include reservations to ensure your compliance with ethical obligations and the normal functioning of the service.

If your employer administration has a serious doubts about the compatibility of your business project with the functions you have performed in the previous 3 years, entered for the opinion ethics referent.

The fact that the ethics referent is seized does not suspend the 2-month period in which your employer administration must respond to your request.

If the opinion of the ethics officer does not remove the doubt, your employer authority shall refer the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP).

The fact that the HATVP is seized suspends the period of 2 months in which your employer administration must respond to your request.

The HATVP may ask you and your last employer administration for any information or documents necessary for the review of your project.

The HATVP may also collect from public and private persons any necessary information.

It may hear or consult any person whose contribution it considers useful.

The HATVP issues an opinion of compatibility or compatibility with reservations (for up to 3 years) orincompatibility.

The HATVP gives its opinion within 2 months following his referral. Failure to give notice within the 2-month period shall be deemed to constitute notice compatibility.

A notice of compatibility with reservations and/or incompatibility is required for you and your employer administration.

Your employer's administration makes its decision in the 15 days after receipt of the HATVP's notice or at most 2 months after referral to the HATVP in the absence of advice from the HATVP within 2 months of referral.