Since January 1, a reform of support payments aims to limit defaults of the latter.

Provided that the amount is fixed, the CAF can now act as intermediaries and directly withdraw the amount from the account of the spouse concerned, before transferring it.  

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Guarantee payments and ease tensions between ex-spouses.

The new system for the payment of alimony, implemented at the national level from January 1, 2021, must be officially presented to Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday during a visit to the Tours family allowance fund.

Translation of a measure decided by the executive at the end of the Great open debate after the mobilization of the yellow vests, this reform aims to automate the payment of alimony.

Europe 1 explains the details of how it works.

"It helps to avoid tensions and to secure the payment each month"

From now on, when a former spouse owes support, it is no longer necessary, each time an unpaid debt occurs, to take steps to obtain payment.

It is the Family Allowance Fund which, on request, becomes an intermediary between the two parties.

She will withdraw the amount of the pension directly from the account of the ex-spouse or the ex-spouse and will transfer it immediately.

This new support payment service is available to parents who have just separated, but also to all those whose separation dates back several months or even years.

Important note: it is not necessary to have been confronted with an unpaid debt to operate this service.

"It helps to avoid tensions, conflicts between parents, and to secure each month the payment", summarizes at the microphone of Europe 1 Amélie Lamoureux, responsible for the Alimony Collection Agency (ARIPA) at CAF de Touraine.

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"New public service"

The only limit of this device is that a judgment is rendered to fix the amount of the alimony, or that a notarial act is drawn up in this sense.

The goal is to ensure that the payment of alimony is no longer a source of concern and even less of conflict, while 85% of the million beneficiaries in France are women.

"It allows them to be able to benefit from it in all serenity, since they no longer need to give their bank details to their ex-spouse" specifies for her part the director of the agency, Elisabeth Malis.

A "new public service" which must kill two birds with one stone: in addition to "solving the problem of violence", it makes it possible to automate the payment of pensions, of which two out of five (or 300,000) are not regularly, if at all.   

The end of "mourning" for alimony

A reform hailed by Claire, a 54-year-old mother, who would have liked to be able to benefit from this device eight years ago, when she separated.

"I had to wait several months of unpaid bills before being able to approach CAF. I had to claim alimony or simply mourn it," she testifies at the microphone of Europe 1. A real obstacle course which is coupled with a "kind of permanent blackmail around alimony, visiting rights ... which sometimes obscures the care that we must provide to children".

If Claire had had the opportunity to involve CAF as soon as she separated, she says that this would have greatly "helped her and that tensions with the father of her children might not have existed".