Emmanuel Macron has taken France by surprise by unveiling an “unprecedented” plan to offer state workers voluntary redundancy in a drive to shrink the bloated public sector.

After successfully pushing through a labour reform last year, the French president is now turning his attentions to the public sector in a country with more than 5.5 million people on the government payroll.

During his campaign he pledged to cut the number of government employees by 120,000 over five years, including 50,000 for the central government.

The former investment banker’s government also announced plans to increase the use of merit-based pay for civil servants and put more government workers on private-sector contracts.

“You can't pretend to want to transform the country and say the public sector is some kind of protected fortress which shouldn't be transformed, which should never be adapted,” said Mr Macron on a trip to Tunisia on Thursday.