Our company has many local bilingual French who used to working with different departments. I found that those people are actually very sharp and quite a few are now directors, leading architectures and leading developers. I can tell that if they stay in government, they definitely can achieve the same level in government. My immediate director told me that he just felt so bored after working for government for four years. After working for some contracts for government, I had exactly same feeling.
If you are kind of person who could not bear with doing nothing for 7.5 hours month after month. (It was so tired for me under this situation.), You better stay in private sector. The key point is what is your interest and the field you are current working. if your field is not a dead one, you will be better off. Actually when baby boomers are close to retirement, the prospect of IT worker is more brighter than five years ago.