French police officers accumulate hours of overtime that the State never truly pays them for, and this is not a mere administrative anecdote. Each year, three million overtime hours add to a mountain stock. In 2018, a report put a precise figure on this debt: 23 million hours, carried by Laurent Nuñez.
- As of December 31, 2018, police officers already had 23 million unpaid overtime hours, valued at 286.9 million euros.
- By the end of 2019, including all rest rights, the stock reached 49.9 million hours for a total charge of 825.5 million euros, i.e., nearly 9% of total police personnel expenditure.
- In 2024, 2.3 million overtime hours were paid, including 5.1 million hours related to the Olympic Games, but the national police could not provide the final stock remaining to be paid.
- 23 Million Hours Vanished: the figure Laurent Nuñez could not hide in 2018
- Hundreds of millions of euros that the State owes to its own police
- Three million hours per year: a debt that keeps growing without ever being settled
23 Million Hours Vanished: the Figure Laurent Nuñez Could Not Hide in 2018
Picture a counter that runs continuously, day and night, never resetting. That is roughly what overtime management in the national police looks like. In October 2020, the Cour des comptes sent a formal request to the Interior Ministry that felt like a cold shower: by December 31, 2018, the officers had accumulated 23 million unpaid overtime hours.
This figure isn’t a minor accounting detail tucked away in a dusty report. It was Laurent Nuñez, then Secretary of State to the Interior Minister, who had to reveal it publicly. Twenty-three million hours equates to the annual workload of several thousand officers working full time. In other words, a sizable portion of the French police force worked without pay for this excess activity.
Valued at an hourly rate of 12.47 euros, this stock already represented a burden of 286.9 million euros for the State. One year later, by the end of 2019, the volume had slightly receded to 20.9 million hours. But the Cour des comptes underscored a troubling paradox: the financial risk associated with it had exploded to reach 535 million euros. Fewer hours accumulated, but more expensive to settle.
Hundreds of Millions of Euros the State Owes to Its Own Police
When you add everything up, the picture becomes even more striking. By December 31, 2019, counting both regular overtime and other accrued rest rights, the total climbed to 49.9 million hours. The Cour des comptes estimated the total financial charge of this stock at 825.5 million euros, accounting for nearly 9% of the national police’s overall personnel expenses.
A Senate report on the 2021 budget bill confirmed the scale of the problem, with an hours stock to be cleared estimated at 24 million hours by the end of 2019. These figures are not limited to policing. The Cour des comptes also noted 18.5 million overtime hours stored in the public hospital system and 6.2 million in the territorial public service, evidence that the work-time debt touches several essential public services.
In response to this situation, sporadic efforts were undertaken. In 2019, an exceptional plan of 44.2 million euros allowed compensation for 3.5 million hours, reserved for officers whose balance exceeded 160 hours as of September 30 of that year. In 2020, a new measure of 26.5 million euros was included in the budget law to cover an annual flow of about 2 million hours, presented as the unavoidable volume identified by the General Directorate of the National Police.
Three Million Hours per Year: a Debt That Keeps Growing Without Ever Being Settled
The problem is that the efforts made struggle to keep pace with the accumulation. Each year, roughly three million overtime hours are added to the existing stock. The compensation measures, even those temporary, resemble patchwork more than a true reduction of the debt.
The most recent data confirm this underlying trend. In its analysis of the 2024 budget execution, published in April 2025, the Cour des comptes states that 2.3 million overtime hours were paid in the national police, versus 3.9 million in 2023. A decline that might seem positive but actually hides an administrative incapacity: the national police could not provide the final stock of hours still to be paid.
The Court also linked this apparent decrease to the payment, starting in 2024, of 5.1 million overtime hours generated by the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. An exceptional event that mobilized law enforcement far beyond their usual working hours, and whose bill was partly settled in the emergency, without resolving the structural problem that has persisted for years.
Ultimately, this overtime story resembles a loan that no one really repays. The State borrows the time of its police, promises to return it one day as rest or as salary, then pushes the due date year after year. Between the Cour des comptes reports, inquiries, and budget analyses, the conclusion remains the same: the debt exists, it is documented, quantified, but it continues to accumulate faster than it is reduced.
