Paris (AFP)

The government will abolish next year a benefit specifically granted to people over the age of 70 who employ a home help, reserving only dependent seniors, government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said Monday.

This measure, provided for in the next draft budget law to be presented Friday, immediately aroused strong criticism from oppositions, left and right.

"In the end, we want to refocus things so that the aid, when it exists, is addressed to the people who need it most," Ndiaye told LCI, confirming information from Les Echos. The device should not be used to help healthy seniors, beyond the allowances granted to all French, to pay for "garden work", said the spokeswoman.

The government, which is looking for ways to save tax cuts promised by Emmanuel Macron, intends to focus the total exemption from employer contributions that automatically benefit people over 70 who employ home help, those in a situation of dependence (benefiting from the APA, the personalized autonomy allowance), or handicap.

This measure is motivated by the observation that "the criterion of age is irrelevant, because there are dependent people before 70 years and other autonomous after this age," said a government source.

Decided in a concern for "social justice", the measure is not primarily aimed at achieving savings, even if, in this case, it could allow to release 310 million euros "to the maximum", according to the same source.

Asked about BFMTV, the Minister of Labor Muriel Pénicaud mentioned the figure of "115 million euros".

In parallel, "we put 115 million euros" in addiction assistance "to create new rights", such as the remuneration of leave for carers, also said the Minister of Public Accounts Gérald Darmanin on BFMTV.

"There is no economy that is made by the state," he still defended.

A certain number of people in their seventies could continue to benefit from the same exemption, no longer because of their age - since this criterion will be abolished - but by emphasizing their dependence - a criterion that already exists and will be maintained.

In total, this exemption scheme, created in 1987 and currently granted on the basis of age, dependency or as home help for a disabled child, costs the state € 1.8 billion a year. .

Mrs Ndiaye refuted any "anti-old policy" on the part of the government. Other tax benefits remain applicable, she said, such as the tax credit or social exemption of 2 euros per hour worked.

The announcement was however strongly criticized on Twitter by oppositions.

"Indignant", have blasted the Republicans. For the spokesman of the National Rally Sébastien Chenu, pensioners are "again victims of the anti-social policy" Emmanuel Macron.

On the left, the socialist senator Rachid Temal was surprised "that a government that speaks of solidarity and progressism can make this decision", while the national secretary of the PCF Fabien Roussel denounced "still a bad blow for the power of purchase of the elderly ".

The measure provoked the annoyance of Synerpa, a structure of some 600 private home care providers. "Among pensioners, there are not only millionaires who employ gardeners," said Florence Arnaiz-Maumé, the Synerpa's delegate general, for whom "a real measure of social justice would have been to introduce a criterion of income "in the exemption from contributions.

Anyway, "we sincerely hope that these 300 million will be reinjected into the old age sector, totally devastated," she added.

© 2019 AFP