According to what the minister in charge of public accounts, Gabriel Atal, announced in an interview with the newspaper “Le Parisien”, the government intends to “toughen” the conditions of residence in France “to benefit from social assistance”, by establishing a vast control plan for the “false beneficiaries” of this aid.
The Minister, who indicated that there are more than a million pensioners who receive their pension while they are outside France, half of them outside the European Union and more than half of those (300,000 ) in Algeria alone, confirmed that this measure will come into force. entered into force on September 1, as part of an amendment to the law on the financing of the law on social security of 2023 (otherwise known as the pension reform law) voted on last April 14.
Thus, it will now be necessary for retired immigrants to spend 9 months of the year in the country, compared to 6 months at present, to be able to benefit from family allowances or the minimum age limit, and the same applies to aid for accommodation. , which currently requires only 8 months of presence in the field.
The government also wants welfare agencies to be able to check airline passenger lists for possible fraud, and the finance ministry wants to check whether retired migrant workers receive their pensions in accordance with the law, especially those who died but whose pensions are still ongoing. sent to their accounts contrary to the law.
Repression of the social rights of the “Sheibani”
This plan mainly concerns thousands of immigrants who came to France from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia during their youth, more precisely during the glorious thirties (1946-1975), who worked in difficult jobs, including construction , agriculture, mining, factories, and other professions that needed a helping hand.
This category of immigrants, or what is called in France the “al-Shaibani” (the elderly in the North African dialect), currently oscillates between 75 and 82 years. Solidarity allowance for the elderly.
In his interview with “Sky News Arabia”, the head of the Franco-Moroccan association “Cap Sud MRE” Salem Fekir, known for his long fight to resolve the outstanding “Al-Shaibani” files, believes that “the real fraud is what this group was exposed to.”
And he continues: “This social assistance, which is paid to certain elderly people, in addition to their low pension, only allows them to obtain the equivalent of the minimum age limit, due to the fraud of the employer over the past years and its failure to authorize their full hours of work, overtime or sick leave.”
However, to obtain this aid, the retired foreign worker must prove that he is residing in a stable and regular manner, i.e. he must spend a period of at least 6 months and one day per year in France. , according to Fakir.
On the other hand, he considers that “the solidarity allowance for the elderly was created because the French government was aware of the deception of which these retirees were the object, so why this procrastination? And what fraud are we talking about knowing that the elderly have the right to a full and decent pension?
It seems that the decision to extend the deadline came as a surprise to Fikir, who longed to engage in a new struggle that would reduce or drop this deadline, especially since he had previously fought a battle that culminated the July 23, 2019 with the promulgation of a new law which allows retired North African workers to receive their full pension without the need for aid or allowances, to return and settle in their country of origin while benefiting from social security rights which allow them, for example, to be treated without problems.
The same sense of frustration and sadness gripped Mohamed Ould El Hajj, the elderly Tunisian man, who is over 80, according to Sky News Arabia.
Ould al-Hajj continues: “We suffered a great deception. We only discovered the employer’s manipulation of our working hours after retirement. If we weren’t heads of large families who depended on our pension, which doesn’t exceed 500 euros, we wouldn’t have stayed here begging for our rights.”
Ould al-Hajj, who planned to visit his country at the beginning of next September, thinks he must accept the idea of dying alone in an inn far from his family, after having applied this extension.
According to the French government, between 6 and 8 billion euros of social assistance funds go each year to those who are not eligible for it due to fraud.
“Social fraud, like tax evasion, is like a hidden tax imposed on active French people,” said Gabriel Atal, minister in charge of public accounts.
In this regard, he promised that before the end of the mandate of President Emmanuel Macron at the beginning of 2027, a thousand jobs will be created in the field of the fight against these frauds, indicating that the government also intends to invest one billion euros. to develop information systems.
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