He gave himself a hundred days to appease and unify the country. This is Emmanuel Macron’s roadmap, unveiled Monday during a presidential address in the midst of a political crisis. However, the next day, one of the executives of his government hastened to slip in a new log to feed a social fire still incandescent.
“Our compatriots are fed up with seeing people receiving aid that they pay for themselves and sending them back to the Maghreb or elsewhere when they have no right to do so,” said Bruno Le Maire. The Minister of the Economy has taken head-on one of the missions set by the Head of State in his speech: “To fight against all forms of delinquency, against all fraud, whether social or tax”.
Even if it means hunting in the footsteps of the far right, even if the presidential majority denies it. “Fraud is a penknife blow to the republican pact. There cannot be solidarity between the French if some, by reprehensible behavior, exonerate themselves from their responsibility, ”explains the Renaissance deputy Mathieu Lefèvre.
“Scandalous to put social fraud and tax fraud on the same level”
But what is the government really playing at, which promises to present a detailed plan in May, when social fraud as a whole has no reliable figures? “We should ask them”, says bitterly Maxime Combes. Member of the Observatory of multinationals, the economist details. “It is scandalous to put social and tax fraud on the same level. Tax evasion is 80 to 100 billion euros. Social fraud, if we just take the CAF, it’s between 1 and 2 billion per year [2,8 milliards par an en 2021 selon l’AFP]. We have an elephant in the middle of the room, and we are interested in the one that took a candy from the back of the room. »
Especially since the executive fails to speak of the sums saved by the State under the non-recourse, with thousands of people who do not claim the aid to which they would nevertheless be entitled. “For the RSA, we are talking about 34% of people who are normally beneficiaries and who do not claim it. For the minimum old age, one in two people fails to ask for it, i.e. a billion in savings per year”, specifies Maxime Combes, who explains DREES data.
Doubling the workforce to strengthen controls
To further combat fraud, Gabriel Attal, Minister for Action and Public Accounts assured that he wanted to “double the staff of the judicial financial investigation service”. “We want to rely on three strong measures: the ban on the payment of allowances to non-European accounts [à partir de juillet]the harmonization of the conditions of residence to obtain its aid, and access to the file of travelers to be able to carry out checks”, abounds Mathieu Lefèvre.
Measures that leave Maxime Combes unmoved. “The administrative control services have lost more than 3,000 jobs since 2008. Between 2008 and 2019, we went from one million to 440,000 off-site checks. We need continuity in the action against tax evasion for it to be truly effective. »
Tighten the noose on individuals, failing to achieve objectives with companies. Despite “historic results” in 2022 hailed by Gabriel Attal, Bercy is still struggling to fill the holes in the racket, especially regarding contribution fraud. In green, the 788 million “adjusted” by Urssaf last year. In red, a shortfall of 6 billion euros linked to “hidden work”, underlines the High Council for the financing of social protection, as recalled by AFP. A body that suggests targeting as a priority: posted work, micro-enterprises and “ephemeral” companies. We are far from the speech carried by the government.