In the world of the French civil service, a civil servant’s main category determines his or her place in the hierarchy, salary level and the nature of the tasks entrusted to him or her. This three-letter classification – A, B and C – has structured the careers of civil servants since the ordinance of October 9, 1945, when General De Gaulle presided over the Provisional Government. To understand this classification is to decipher the very architecture of public employment, whether in the State, regional or hospital civil service. Whether you’re a candidate for a competitive examination, a current employee looking to move up the career ladder, or a citizen curious about the workings of the civil service, the main category is your compass. It lays down the conditions of access, pay scales, promotion prospects and scope of responsibility. In 2026, while statutory reforms continue and the PPCR protocol continues to produce its effects, this organization into categories remains the foundation on which all public human resources management rests. We take a closer look at a system that affects over five million employees in France.
Main category in the civil service: definition and basis of classification
The main category designates the hierarchical group to which a civil servant belongs. There are three levels to this classification: category A for design, management and senior management functions, category B for middle management and application tasks, and category C for executive positions and specialized technical professions. This type of breakdown applies across all three levels of the civil service.
To use an analogy often cited by administrative law specialists, category A corresponds to officers, category B to non-commissioned officers, and category C to non-commissioned men. This military parable is by no means anodyne: it refers directly to the heritage of the first civil service statute, conceived in a context where military vocabulary permeated the structures of the State. Civil servants hold a civilian grade, are appointed to a permanent post, and their main category determines their entire career path.
It’s worth pointing out that the frequent mention of an “A+” category in the debates has no legal existence whatsoever. In reality, these are agents holding a promotion grade within the A category, occupying functions with a very high level of responsibility. The list of French civil service corps lists all these distinctions in detail.
The three sections of the classification: distribution and conditions of access to competitions
According to the annual report on the state of the civil service, category A accounts for 39% of all civil servants. The positions concerned involve design, expertise and management. The external competitive examinations in this section require a bac+3 diploma, but the reality on the ground shows that most successful candidates hold a Master’s degree. In the French state civil service, 56% of employees belong to this category, compared with 13% in the local authority sector and 44% in the hospital sector. Administrative attachés, engineers, local art teachers, local doctors: the jobs are varied and demanding.
Category B accounts for 22% of the workforce. It covers middle management, drafting and technical application tasks. The baccalaureate is the minimum entrance requirement for external competitive examinations, with some positions requiring a bac+2. Writers, technicians, animators, conservation assistants: these agents have greater autonomy than category C, and carry significant responsibilities in the day-to-day running of departments. The breakdown varies according to sector: 24% in the FPE, 15% in the FPT, 30% in the FPH.
Category C also accounts for 39% of civil servants. This category covers manual and technical jobs such as cooks, electricians and maintenance workers. C competitive examinations are open to holders of a brevet, CAP or BEP. The least qualified jobs remain accessible without competitive examination, via direct recruitment. It’s worth noting that in the local civil service, this category accounts for 72% of the workforce, making it the backbone of local authorities.
Internal organization: corps, cadres d’emplois, grades and steps
The main category alone is not sufficient to understand an employee’s position. Each category is subdivided into corps (in the FPE and FPH) or cadres d’emplois (in the FPT). These two terms designate the same reality: a group of agents subject to the same special status, with the same grades and the same professions. The cadre d’emplois des rédacteurs territoriaux, the cadre d’emplois des techniciens, the cadre d’emplois des attachés, each brings together professionals with comparable missions.
Within each corps or cadre d’emploi, a number of grades define the hierarchical progression. The initial grade corresponds to the first career step, while the promotion grades are called “principal”, “hors classe” or “classe exceptionnelle”. A local redactor can become a 2nd-class redactor principal, then a 1st-class redactor. An attaché can be promoted to attaché principal, then attaché hors classe. The CFDT details these concepts in a pedagogical way for agents seeking to understand their career progression.
The grade is then broken down into steps. Each step corresponds to a length of service (between 1 and 4 years) and a gross career index, coupled with a raised index which determines the monthly salary. Step advancement is automatic, based on seniority. For detailed information, please consult the indexed pay scales for the French civil service, which give a precise breakdown of remuneration by grade and step.
Recent reforms and new breakdowns in the main category
The distribution of grades between categories changes regularly. Decree n°2018-184 modified the nomenclature of grades in the territorial civil service, on the occasion of this year’s professional elections. This update was prompted by a number of statutory reforms: the Parcours professionnels, carrières et rémunérations (PPCR) protocol, the creation of the grades of attaché hors classe and ingénieur hors classe, and the integration of socio-educational assistants and early childhood educators into category A.
These reclassifications reflect a desire to upgrade the status of certain social and education professions, which had long been confined to category B despite increasing levels of training and responsibility. Category C salary scales have also been restructured, with C1, C2 and C3 scales. An agent on the C1 scale promoted to the second grade follows a precise table of correspondence for his or her reclassification, as detailed in the CDG 60 factsheet.
In category B, the distinction between initial grades and main grades is becoming clearer. Techniciens principaux de 2e et 1re classe, rédacteurs principaux, chefs de service de police municipale principaux find themselves in a stratum identified as “B+”, with a minimum terminal gross index of 591. The same is true of category A, with the “A+” stratum grouping directors, territorial administrators, chief engineers and curators whose terminal gross index exceeds 999. For an up-to-date overview, Emploi Public offers a detailed panorama of these major job categories.
Main category and professional visibility: the link with the e-reputation of public establishments
The main category of a public establishment or local service directly influences its ability to recruit and retain staff, and to project an image of competence to users. A department with a majority of category A staff will be perceived as having superior expertise. This perception is now reflected online: the Google Business Profiles of town halls, hospitals and administrative centers collect opinions that reflect the quality of the welcome and service provided. This quality depends in part on the match between staff skills and the type of mission entrusted to them.
The filtering of applications for competitive examinations, conditioned by the target category, guarantees a minimum level of qualification. When a local authority recruits an attaché territorial to manage its digital communications, it is ensuring a profile capable of managing the institution’s reputation on search engines and review platforms. The definition of categories on a Google My Business listing follows a similar logic: choosing the right main category determines the visibility of an establishment in local search results.
An enlightening parallel is in order here. In the same way that a civil servant who is poorly classified in his or her category will see his or her skills under-exploited, a business or public service whose Google My Business listing displays an inappropriate category will lose relevance in Google Maps. The average rating of reviews, profile consistency and perceived credibility form an ecosystem in which every miscalibrated classification penalizes visibility.
Outlook and impact of artificial intelligence on category management
Artificial intelligence is gradually transforming human resources management in the civil service. Predictive tools now analyze career paths to anticipate training needs, optimize assignments and detect which employees are eligible for promotion. Category classification, which until now has been managed essentially on an administrative basis, could benefit from partial automation thanks to these technologies. Departmental management centers, such as CDG 67, are already publishing updated nomenclatures which could eventually feed decision-making support systems.
On the online visibility side, generative AI is changing the way users access information about public services. Answers generated by search engines are increasingly integrating structured data from establishment files, schema rating data and published reviews. A public establishment whose main category is correctly indicated in its metadata will benefit from greater exposure in these enhanced responses. The fight against suspicious reviews and the proper management of unjustified review deletions are becoming strategic issues for image-conscious local authorities.
Earned media, the visibility gained through spontaneous mentions and user feedback, is playing an increasingly important role in the perception of public services. Theinfluence of a local administration on its territory is now as much a question of the quality of its physical reception as of the coherence of its digital presence. The main category, whether it designates the rank of a civil servant or the classification of an establishment on Google, remains a structuring lever for those wishing to control their reputation and visibility in an environment increasingly driven by algorithms.
Sources: Rapport annuel sur l’état de la fonction publique (DGAFP, 2024 edition). Decree n°2018-184 of March 15, 2018 relating to the nomenclature of FPT grades. Ordonnance n°45-2283 du 9 octobre 1945 relative à la formation, au recrutement et au statut de certaines catégories de fonctionnaires. Service-public.fr, civil servant categories. Emploi-collectivités.fr, territorial editor salary scale.
