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How do nurses’ salaries in France compare to the rest of Europe?

French nurses recently faced off with President Macron over the issue of low pay and a lack of resources in the midst of the country’s worst health crisis in a century. But just how badly paid are French nurses?

Published: 19 May 2020 15:54 CEST

If you haven’t seen footage of French health workers berating Emmanuel Macron over the conditions and low pay they’ve had to endure during the Covid-19 pandemic, that’s because there isn’t any.

Perhaps in anticipation of what the French president would be subjected to, the Élysée didn’t allow any press to cover Macron’s visit to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on Friday, May 16th.

“We are desperate”, “we no longer believe in you” and “we are the shame of Europe” were just some of the remarks hurled at the 42-year-old head of state, who did somewhat begrudgingly acknowledge mistakes in reforming France’s national hospital system, historically regarded as one of the world’s best.

France’s public health system has indeed faced years of cuts, which have served to leave hospitals in the world’s 21st wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita (€36,585 according to 2019 IMF figures) short of staff and equipment during the Covid-19 crisis.

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And when it comes to financial remuneration for these perpetually “essential workers” – pandemic or no pandemic – the situation isn’t much better.

According to OECD data from 2017, French nurses are in the bottom half of the table when it comes to comparing their wages to the average salary in each country in question.

While in Spain nurses earn 29 percent more on average, in Greece an extra 18 percent and in Germany 13 percent more, in France nurses get paid 6 percent less.

Les infirmières françaises sont-elles si mal payées ? >> https://t.co/1uLto2e9lx #hopital pic.twitter.com/tUKYTvaS8n

— Le Parisien Infog (@LeParisienInfog) May 18, 2020

There are other wealthy nations such as Finland (-9 percent) and Switzerland (-14 percent) where nurses are paid worse still on average, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that France came in a lowly 28th position out of 32 countries surveyed.

In reaction to Friday’s Macron vs health workers feud, French Health Minister Olivier Véran told weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that “the nation will have to make a significant effort to recognise their role” and that their wages will “quickly” reach a “level of remuneration corresponding at least with the European average”.

A 2019 study published by Appel Médical, a subsidiary of temporary employment agency Randstad, showcases how the French government’s MO of only reacting when put under the pressure is nothing new.

Their research found that recruiters in France’s public health sector had been forced to increase salaries for nurses and other caregivers due to an alarming lack of staff, as many were choosing to work instead in the better paying private sector.

According to a survey conducted by French nursing website infirmiers.com, French nurses earned on average €1,820 net per month in 2017.

Earlier reports from 2012 put the average wages for nurses at €2,225 net a month, which suggests there has been gradual salary drop for this group over the past few years.

Factors such as experience, specialisation and fluctuations in France's Gross Salary Index for public workers make it hard to ascertain just how pronounced this drop in wages has been.

But the general consensus appears to be that nurses in the public sector in particular earn less than their counterparts in the private sector, on average half of what state pharmacists and doctors get.

France’s government has already promised nurses and other hospital staff a bonus ranging from €500 to €1,500 for their efforts during the epidemic together with the promise of a salary revaluation.

“The president has been very clear: we will increase salaries, we’re working on an ambitious investment plan to instigate a profound transformation of everything that isn’t working in our hospitals,” Minister of Health Olivier Véran assured on Sunday.

For French nurses, it will prove a bitter pill to swallow if the government doesn’t stick to its word once the panic of the pandemic fades away.

Member comments

Anonymous - 19 May 2020 at 17:43 CEST

I need some help in understanding this. As a nurse in the USA I know I am paid very well as I am a First Assistant in the Operating Room. A floor nurse here makes about $25 an hour starting, and works a 40 hour week. That is about $1000 a week. This does not includes deducted benefits that are paid by both employee and employeer. But your figures of 1820 Euros net seems really low. I need some perspective, what are the nurses paid hourly? But jeepers, it still seems like that are not making any money. How do they live on that?

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.