These announcements come three weeks after a first plan focused on the fight against tax fraud.

"Social fraud, like tax fraud, is a form of hidden tax on French people who work," the minister said in an interview with Le Parisien.

Social benefit fraud alone is estimated at between 6 and 8 billion euros per year according to the Court of Auditors.

The minister gives himself 10 years to lead the project, with a first step, namely to have in 2027 "twice as many results as in 2022". Turnarounds have already increased by 35% over the past five years.

To this end, it promises the creation of a thousand additional jobs during this five-year period and an investment of one billion euros in information systems.

The minister has all detailed a series of measures in the more or less short term.

In particular, he wants to "strengthen" the conditions of residence in France "to benefit from social benefits".

It will now be necessary to spend nine months of the year in the country, against six currently planned, to benefit from family allowances or the minimum old-age pension, says the minister. The same applies to APLs, which require only eight months of presence at the moment.

Gabriel Attal intends to increase the means of Urssaf to limit fraud in employers' contributions.

Another announcement, with potentially concrete repercussions on the French, the government is considering a merger between the Carte Vitale and the identity card in order to fight against fraud in health benefits.

"We can imagine a model where from a certain date, when you redo your identity card it automatically becomes your Carte Vitale," the minister said during an exchange with journalists, adding that a prefiguration mission would be launched by the summer and could reach conclusions by the end of the year.

By the way, the idea of a biometric Carte Vitale seems abandoned, especially given its cost.

Bercy also wants to target retirees living outside European borders to better identify those who have died but continue to receive benefits.

The minister recalled that more than one million pensions were paid abroad, half of them outside Europe, and 300,000 in Algeria.

© 2023 AFP