Total strives to offer all employees comparable compensation and benefits everywhere in the world, while incorporating local factors. Equitable practices apply in particular to salaries, insurance and pensions.

Compensation Policy

Our total compensation policy incorporates local factors. Base salaries are sometimes supplemented by incentives to reward performance:

• Company performance incentives, such as profit-sharing.
• Rewards for personal performance, such as bonuses, variable compensation or stock options.

We are also stepping up employee share ownership and regularly carry out share issues reserved for employees. At December 31, 2006, employees were one of Total’s largest shareholder groups, holding 3.74% of our share capital.

In addition, a growing number of employees are eligible for worldwide programs that grant stock options and shares without consideration. The figure was 7,845 in 2006, versus 7,300 in 2005, with 46% first-time grantees.

Employee Savings, Retirement and Insurance

Total’s goal is to provide every employee with an insurance policy with death benefits equal to at least 200% of their annual gross salary. At end-2006, 72% of employees had such coverage, an increase of 3% over 2005 on a like-for-like basis.

Supplementary Retirement and Early Retirement

Outside France, Total offers supplementary retirement plans, generally based on defined contributions. This secures satisfactory resources for employees even though local pension coverage may prove inadequate.

In France, we are implementing the national retirement reform introduced in 2004. We have developed special benefits for employees aged 55 to 60 who decide to buy back quarterly contributions so that they can retire at 60. They have access to interest-free loans for that purpose, matched by a supplementary retirement benefit.