As part of a plan to fight against social fraud, Gabriel Attal announced the start of a reflection on a merger of the vital card and the identity card. Gérald Darmanin leans more towards a biometric Vitale card.
Gabriel Attal, the Minister in charge of Public Accounts, unveiled Tuesday, May 30 in the newspaper Le Parisien-Today in France a plan to fight against social fraud, which would represent a shortfall of 6 to 8 billion euros, according to the Court of Auditors. Among the key measures: the beginning of a reflection around a merger of the Vitale card and the identity card. And this idea is controversial and creates tensions within the executive.
>> Social fraud: three questions on the proposed merger of the Vitale card and the identity card
On paper, the idea seemed attractive: to merge the Vitale card and the identity card to avoid scams and “medical tourism”. Except that Monday evening, the Ministry of the Interior seemed to discover the idea put forward by Bercy. And so a little fall out of the cabinet. But it’s “impossible“that Gérald Darmanin was not made aware, corrects an executive adviser on Tuesday morning. arm wrestling the government The question was asked during the report of the Council of Ministers, to the spokesperson Olivier Véran, who had a hard time hiding the ambient unease. “There is no subject on the plan which was presented by the Minister of Public Accounts. If you allude to ‘offs’, it is not my place here to comment on them. I can only tell you that ‘there is a government strategy that has been presented.
Bercy considers the biometric Vitale card too expensive
Behind the scenes, the executive explains that the idea of a Vitale card-identity card merger was indeed raised at an interministerial meeting, that the final arbitration will be made by Matignon and therefore by Elisabeth Borne. Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who manages the allocation of identity cards, would prefer a biometric Vitale card based on fingerprints. A system deemed too expensive by Bercy.
And then, beyond the political controversy, there are also the practical details. It’s very complicated to set up. Impossible to say, for example, when this merger could take place. Not overnight, that’s for sure, knowing that in France, the deadlines for renewing identity papers are already colossal and that it is sometimes impossible to find appointments to have them redone.
But the government wants to move quickly, with a whole host of measures to make up for the shortfall. It is an old sea serpent of the right, and even of the extreme right: to fight against those who unduly receive social benefits and allowances. To do this, the government promises to double the number of adjustments by 2027. It will also tighten the conditions for being able to receive social benefits: nine months of residence in France per year are compulsory to benefit, for example, from the minimum old age or family allowances. It’s six today. In the same vein, the executive wants to list pensioners who live outside the European Union to identify those who may have died but are still receiving benefits. The government also wants to hunt down autoentrepreneurs who do not declare everything they touch, hunt down doctors who overcharge for fictitious medical acts. In short, to fight against all this fraud which, according to Gabriel Attal, the Minister in charge of Public Accounts, is “a hidden tax against working French people”.