The teacher’s pact was based on a mechanism of functional shares, each share corresponding to a specific mission accepted by the agent. Its planned removal in the 2026 finance bill does not change either the salary scale or the statutory bonuses. However, it removes a variable compensation lever that several tens of thousands of teachers had integrated into their monthly budget.
Differential allowance and minimum wage 2026: the real issue of the salary scale
The increase in the minimum wage on June 1, 2026, raised to 1,867.02 euros gross per month, has created an unprecedented situation. The minimum salary for public service, indexed to the enhanced index 366, is set at 1,801.74 euros gross. The legal common floor now exceeds the basic salary of agents at the start of the scale.
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To compensate for this gap, the administration pays a differential allowance to the affected agents. This mechanism does not constitute a salary scale revaluation. It fills a temporary deficit without altering career progression or pension calculations.
Student teachers and holders at the first rungs of the primary school teachers’ body are the first affected. With the simultaneous disappearance of the pact, these profiles accumulate two disadvantages: a salary caught up by the minimum wage and the loss of a variable supplement. We observe that the end of the teacher’s pact in 2026 primarily impacts agents whose base salary was already the most fragile.
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Functional share of the pact: anatomy of a lost income
Each functional share was paid based on an annual flat rate. A teacher could accumulate several shares over a school year, for missions ranging from short-term replacements to pedagogical support like “Homework done”.
The net loss directly depends on the number of shares accepted. A teacher engaged in a single mission loses a modest supplement. Those who accumulated three or four see their payslip reduced by a significant amount, with no compensation provided in the 2026 finance bill.
The underlying problem lies in the very nature of the system. The pact was neither a statutory bonus nor a step advancement. It functioned as task-based remuneration, disconnected from the salary scale. Its removal leaves no trace in career progression: no impact on the pension, no seniority bonus.
Contractual staff and non-permanent personnel
Contractual agents who had access to the pact lose a source of income without being able to rely on the salary progression mechanisms reserved for permanent staff. Their budgetary situation deteriorates proportionally more than that of certified or aggregated teachers in mid-career.
Mandatory complementary social protection: an additional expense item in 2026
The year 2026 also marks the entry into force of the mandatory complementary social protection (PSC) for public service agents, co-financed by the employer. This measure imposes a new contribution that, even partially covered by the state, reduces the net pay.
Combined with the end of the pact, this contribution exacerbates the compression of disposable income. Teachers at the start of the scale, already caught up by the minimum wage, simultaneously absorb:
- The loss of functional shares from the pact, not compensated by the 2026 finance bill
- The differential allowance that keeps their salary at the minimum wage level without revaluing their step
- The mandatory PSC contribution that reduces the monthly net pay
The net result is a decline in real purchasing power for a significant portion of the teaching staff, precisely the profiles that the ministry seeks to recruit.
Teacher recruitment exams and attractiveness: the figures of the recruitment crisis
The link between remuneration and attractiveness is no longer in question. In public primary education, the number of candidates for exams has decreased by 30.8% between 2016 and 2024, while the number of positions opened has only decreased by 20.8%. The secondary education follows the same trajectory, with a decrease of 32.2% in candidates during the same period.
Removing the pact without raising the salary scale amounts to withdrawing a global remuneration argument in a context where applications are already scarce. The new paid training pathway M2E, which allows for pre-recruitment as early as the master’s degree, attempts to address this hemorrhage through another channel. But this system targets future teachers, not those already in position who are losing the pact’s supplement.
M2E pathway and entry income trajectory
The M2E offers remuneration during initial training, which improves the income trajectory before permanent appointment. For students who are hesitating between teaching and the private sector, this paid pre-recruitment changes the economic calculation of entering the profession. It does not replace the pact but shifts the focus to another stage of the career.
School education budget 2026: trade-offs and demographic variable
The 2026 finance bill is set against a backdrop of strong budgetary constraints. The Court of Auditors has pointed out the opacity of the pact system: it is impossible to know precisely how many teachers actually received this supplement, nor to assess its real pedagogical impact.
This lack of reliable data has facilitated the arbitration against its maintenance. The demographic decline in primary education, which mechanically reduces the need for positions, also serves as an adjustment variable. Fewer students, fewer classes, fewer replacements to cover: the accounting logic absorbs the removal of the pact in a movement of overall contraction.
For teachers in position, the reading is different. The workload does not decrease proportionally to the decline in student numbers, and the missions that the pact remunerated (support, accompaniment, replacement) do not disappear with it. They simply become unpaid or rely on other mechanisms like additional hours per year, which are capped.
The payslip for September 2026 will constitute the first real test. Teachers who had structured their budget around the pact’s supplement will have to absorb a significant loss, in a context where neither the salary scale nor the statutory bonuses have been reviewed upwards to compensate.