The French government is clamping down on social security fraud – which the Court of Audit says costs the country between 6 and 8 billion euros a year – rolling out plans to make it harder to get benefits while also hiking up penalties for those who cheat the system.
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Public Accounts Minister Gabriel Attal unveiled the measures on Tuesday in an interview with daily newspaper Le Parisien, saying: “We need to take action, because social fraud, like tax fraud, is a form of hidden tax on French people who work.”
Top of the list are plans to make claiming benefits conditional on living in France for at least nine months per year, merging the Carte Vitale health card and the French ID card, cross-checking social security files with Interior Ministry files to stop benefits being paid to illegal immigrants, and