This is Eric Zemmour’s new campaign axis. “Do you know that the amount of social fraud is estimated at up to 40 billion euros per year?”launched the far-right candidate for the presidential election, Saturday, January 22, during his meeting in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes).
This figure was also taken up, Thursday, January 27 on franceinfo, by Guillaume Peltier, spokesperson for the former polemicist. Faced with what he describes as “waste”the ex-executive of the Republicans militates for “the creation of a national fraud prevention brigade” to control “all recipients of social minima”. But is the figure put forward by Eric Zemmour and his supporters true or “fake”?
Asked about this estimate, Guillaume Peltier notably referred to “Pascal Brindeau’s parliamentary report”. A commission of inquiry of the National Assembly, of which this UDI deputy from Loir-et-Cher was rapporteur, actually published its conclusions in September 2020. This work focused on “the fight against fraud in social benefits”which include family allowances, the rincome of active solidarity (RSA)old-age allowances or housing aid.
However, the 215-page document does not include any estimate of the overall amount of these frauds. And for good reason, “in the absence of a regularly updated assessment, it is difficult to correctly assess the extent” of the phenomenon, admits the parliamentary report. However, the commission of inquiry cites a study by the English University of Portsmouth (PDF in English)dated 2015 and produced using data from seven countries, including France. “It is clear that the rate of fraud (and error) in any organization should be at least 3% (…) and possibly more than 10%”, advance the British researchers.
By applying this range to some 470 billion euros in social benefits paid by Social Security, MP Pascal Brindeau estimated with several media, including franceinfo, that undetected fraud could be quantified “between 14 and 45 billion euros” per year. It is precisely this interval that is taken up by Eric Zemmour’s camp. On the site presenting the candidate’s program, the graph which illustrates his proposal to fight “against social fraud” cites as source: “Rapporteur National Assembly, 2020”. “These are sums that we consider plausible”exposes to franceinfo Pascal Brindeau, who recognizes however that they are impossible to “to prove” formally. It is for this reason that the estimate does not appear in the report, justifies the centrist deputy.
“From the moment you do not have the means to verify these figures, we could not keep them as such in the report.”
Pascal Brindeau, UDI MPat franceinfo
Contacted by franceinfo, the authors of the 2015 British study recall that their work covers both intentional fraud and errors, which are sometimes difficult to dissociate. “VSThe estimates should therefore be considered broad averages”insists Mark Button, professor at the University of Portsmouth.
What’s more, the results of the study certainly derive from a compilation of information from different countries but, in the case of France, only data from 2004 from the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) on sick leaves were taken into account, underlines his colleague Jim Gee.
But the camp of the far-right candidate does not rely solely on this work. At the microphone of franceinfo, Guillaume Peltier also quoted twice “Charles Prats, who speaks of 50 billion euros” benefits fraud each year. Eric Zemmour had himself referred to the controversial estimates of this magistrate, on September 23, on the set of BFMTV, during a debate against Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Charles Prats, member of the campaign team of LR presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse, has made social fraud his hobbyhorse.
In 2018, he notably assessed fraud at 14 billion euros per year. related to the registration with the Social Security of persons born abroad. A calculation based on extrapolations and disputed by the Department of Social Security (DSS), in charge of the file. Charles Prats relied on an audit conducted in 2011 on the allocation of an identification number to people born abroad. This audit concluded with a “false document rate” 6.3% on a random sample of files. This rate had been rbrought to all the files and to a supposed average amount of the services requested by social number to deduce an overall estimate of the fraud.
But this rate of“abnormalities” did not distinguish poorly legible or non-compliant documents from proven fraud, the DSS then explained to franceinfo. In addition, a Social Security number does not automatically give access to expense reimbursements, she said. According to the report of the commission of inquiry of the National Assembly, which is based on a previous work carried out by the Senate in 2019 (in PDF)the damage would actually amount to “nearly 140 million euros”. A hundred times less than the amount advanced by Charles Prats.
Contacted by franceinfo, the magistrate maintains that the “level” of social benefits fraud is 50 billion euros per year. However, he adds that he prefers “talking about issues” rather than an estimate, for lack of precise statistics on the subject.
Faced with this flood of figures, the Court of Auditors tried to settle the debate, without success, “Lthe available data do not allow a sufficiently reliable figure to be reached”laments the instance in a report (in PDF)published in September 2020. The text does not “present therefore no overall estimate of the amount of benefit fraud [sociales]“.
The Elders, responsible for controlling the public accounts, were however able to establish the amount of fraud actually detected. In 2019, one billion “harms suffered and avoided” were spotted by major social organizations. In detail, for the family branch, it is mainly the RSA, the activity bonus and housing aid that are the subject of fraud. Resumptions of activity not declared to Pôle emploi and fraud related to the minimum old age for the old age branch are also cited in the report.
For the rest, most social organizations do not estimate the total amount of fraud, detected or not, regrets the Court of Auditors. Only the National family allowance fund (Cnaf) evaluated it at 2.3 billion euros in 2018, or 3.2% of the amount of benefits paid. “This fraud focuses on the RSA, the activity bonus and housing aid, family benefits being less affected”writes the Court of Auditors.
The sickness branch (Cnam) and the old age branch (Cnav), for their part, had not made such estimates at the time. For its part, Pôle emploi carried out an evaluation of the fraud on a partial field in 2015, but had not renewed it at the time of writing the report. This lack of solid data therefore makes it impossible “to assess the real impact” checks carried out by social bodies.
“The absence of an estimate of the amount of fraud for most benefits deprives the action of public authorities and social organizations of an essential instrument for guiding the actions to be taken to better prevent, detect and sanction it. .”
The Court of Auditorsin a September 2020 report
At the conclusion of its report, the Court of Auditors made a series of recommendations aimed at improving “to measure the magnitude” of the phenomenon and “dry up the possibilities”. One of them aims to “estimate the amount of benefit fraud, not only for the family branch, but also for health insurance, the old-age branch and Pôle emploi”.
Since the publication of the report of the Court of Auditors, the various organizations have ensured that they are mobilizing to comply with the recommendations of the body. The Cnam declared with franceinfo only “work is being finalized”, but that the date of their publication “is not stopped precisely”.
Also requested, the CNAV claims to have tested last year “a new method of assessing fraud”. “These operations are currently in the final phase of verification” and “a first assessment” is expected “at the end of the first quarter of 2022”. Finally, on the side of Pôle emploi, where “work on estimating fraud is in progress”results must be known “in a few months”.
As for Eric Zemmour, he qualified his position on Tuesday on the Twitch channel of France Télévisions. “Some say 15 billion, others say between 15 and 45 (…) others say 50”, he listed. “It’s complicated to assess social fraud”, finally admitted the candidate.