Continuity of public service in France: what it changes for phone reception

In its decision no. 79-105 DC of 25 July 1979, the Conseil constitutionnel (France’s Constitutional Council) held that the continuity of public service has, just like the right to strike, the character of a principle of constitutional value. An article published in 2012 in the Nouveaux Cahiers du Conseil constitutionnel recalls that the Conseil d’État (France’s highest administrative court) had already recognised it in 1950, in the Dehaene judgment of 7 July 1950, delivered on the right of public servants to strike.

This principle is not rigid. According to the same article, it requires public services to operate regularly and punctually, with requirements that vary according to the very purpose of the activities: firefighting and hospital services must be provided permanently, whereas the postal service and education legitimately follow a different rhythm. Continuity is therefore not the same as uninterrupted opening.

For a local authority, this flexibility invites a concrete question: what must remain reachable at all times, such as the on-call arrangement of the technical services, and what can wait for opening hours? The answer is a matter of local organisation, and is decided in the light of what each service must ensure.

The Services Publics+ programme (France’s public service quality programme), run by the interministerial directorate for public transformation (the DITP), took over from the Marianne reference framework. Its website lists eight commitments, including a welcoming reception with the right to make mistakes, the ability to get in touch easily with public services, support adapted to the personal situation, handling within the announced times and clear, simple and accessible information.

These commitments do not by themselves set a standard for telephone response. They serve as a quality framework: announcing opening hours, keeping call-back times, making information legible. Each service applies them in its own way, and this article cannot detail the measures specific to each.

The programme also provides for access to service quality results and for taking users’ views into account to improve services. For phone reception, this means being able to measure what is actually done, for example calls received, call-backs made and times kept.

Article 78 of the law of 11 February 2005 (loi n° 2005-102, France’s disability law), as amended by the law for a Digital Republic of 7 October 2016, provides that the telephone reception services of public services intended to receive users’ calls are accessible to deaf, hard-of-hearing, deafblind and aphasic people, through a simultaneous written and visual translation service, at no extra cost to the user and paid for by the public service. Access is direct or, failing that, through a dedicated online platform.

Decree no. 2017-875 of 9 May 2017 sets the minimum hours of this service for public services (article 2): until 30 September 2026, a span of at least 50% of that of the telephone reception; from 1 October 2026, the same opening hours as the telephone reception. In concrete terms, a town hall whose switchboard is open from 09:00 to 17:00 must now make its reception accessible through translation over that whole span, and not 24 hours a day.

The “five hours a month” and the “24 hours a day” operation sometimes cited for the same date concern another obligation: that of electronic communications operators, who must offer their deaf, hard-of-hearing, deafblind and aphasic subscribers an offer that includes this translation service (article D98-14 of the French Postal and Electronic Communications Code, created by article 1 of the same decree). Since 1 October 2026, this offer has operated around the clock with a reasonable-use limit of five hours of communications per month, compared with three hours previously, as the Arcep (France’s telecoms regulator) points out.

Article 6 of the decree of 9 May 2017 staggered the entry into force of the obligation for public services: two years after the promulgation of the law of 7 October 2016 for State services and private bodies entrusted with a public service mission, four years for local authority services, other than municipalities of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and their groupings, and five years for the latter, that is 7 October 2021. All local authorities are therefore affected today, and the 1 October 2026 stage applies to them as it does to other public services.

In practice, it is prudent for a municipality to check that its public line remains reachable through the translation service throughout its telephone opening hours: access route clearly indicated, reception informed about how the relay works, call-back procedure for the people who use it. The entry into force of the 1 October 2026 stage is an opportunity to check these points.

Whatever organisational choice is made, a few simple checks are part of good management. Are the telephone reception hours identical on the website, on the door and on the answerphone? Is the way of accessing the translation service shown to the people who use it, and do its hours match those of the switchboard? Are the Services Publics+ commitments on ease of contact and announced times reflected in the instructions given to staff?

These checks need few resources. They make it possible to spot gaps between what the authority displays and what it does, without waiting for a complaint. Whenever hours or a number change, all media should be updated the same day.

For an administration, automated reception can help answer simple questions outside opening hours, but it replaces neither the telephone accessibility arrangement nor the official who processes a request. It complements a service; it does not determine how the principle of continuity is put into practice in the organisation.

In this context, Alyas, an AI voice agent, answers using the information supplied by the authority, announces at the start of the call that it is an AI and that the conversation is recorded, collects the contact details and the reason for the call, then leaves a transcript and a summary in the Alyas workspace. It does not replace an accessibility arrangement; if it cannot answer, it says so and offers to pass the request on. The 10-day free trial, with no card required, lets you assess it before any decision.