In France, within the territorial civil service (fonction publique territoriale) employment frameworks (cadres d'emplois) constitute specific statutes corresponding to various jobs to be filled. They are roughly equivalent to the corps found in the French state civil service.
Article 4 of Law No. 84-53 of 26 January 1984 originally provided that territorial civil servants would be grouped into corps, similar to civil servants of the State and public hospital establishments. However, Law No. 87-529 of 13 July 1987 substituted the concept of the employment framework (cadre d'emplois). Only the agents of the commune-department of Paris were grouped into corps.
The aforementioned law of 26 January 1984 states:
Sociologically, the employment framework is defined less by a specific trade or technical skill and more by the capacity of individuals to hold a specific rank in the administrative hierarchy. Access to a framework often requires passing a competitive examination (concours) which serves to unify the specific employment branch while differentiating it from others (e.g., distinguishing "administrators" from "technicians").
The employment frameworks are structured hierarchically, separating execution tasks from management and conception.
Distinct from the administrative stream, the Technical stream (e.g., Engineers) operates with different professional norms; for instance, competitive exams for engineers value concise, technical expression, whereas administrative exams (like those for attachés) favor "philosophical, journalistic, or legalistic" forms of expression.
Access to the different employment frameworks is conditioned upon passing a competitive examination (concours) or obtaining an internal promotion.
The competitive examination can be:
Different examinations are organized for each level of the employment framework. For the framework of , the examination is that of the Institut national des études territoriales (INET). For the framework of territorial attachés, examinations are organized at the departmental level by each . The City of Paris, which has a specific statute, does not depend on any center as it acts as its own management center. It therefore organizes its own attaché examination for the City of Paris.
Other employment frameworks are filled by specific examinations organized for each stream and each employment framework based on needs. Each year, examinations for territorial engineer, animator, or territorial professors are organized by the management centers or by the .
Employment frameworks are, in turn, grouped into ten job streams (filières). Within the same stream, there are several employment frameworks. Each employment framework is attached to one of three categories: A, B, or C (see French civil service#Grades). For example, the administrative stream includes the employment frameworks of , territorial attaché, and secretary of the town hall (secrétaire de mairie) in Category A; territorial editor in Category B; and administrative assistant in Category C (following a law of 22 December 2006, the category of administrative agent was abolished and integrated into the employment framework of administrative assistants). The statute of each employment framework is national and established by a decree in the Council of State.