French Finance Minister Sparks Controversy Over Social Benefit Fraud Claims

"Our compatriots are fed up with fraud [social]. They have no desire to see that some people can benefit from aid, send it back to the Maghreb or elsewhere, when they are not entitled to it. That’s not what it’s for, the social model," the Minister of Finance said on Tuesday on BFM-TV. Words that provoked the anger of the left, starting with the leader of France Insoumise (LFI). "Dear Muslim compatriots or like me from the Maghreb, get ready. To create a diversion, the government announces through the voice of Bruno Le Maire a new campaign to point the finger at you. Sangfroid," Jean-Luc Mélenchon reacted on Twitter.

The boss of the LFI deputies, Mathilde Panot, also denounced this statement by Le Maire. "You will not extinguish social anger by sowing the poison of division. We now know that to the political void is added your moral decline. On May 1, the united people answer you in the street," she tweeted. For Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party (PS), "the far right is dangerously filling the government’s void", deploring that the government "mobilizes racist prejudices to avoid recalling that social fraud is essentially the work of employers and that tax evasion is without equal".

The LFI deputy for the 11th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis, Clémentine Autain, also reacted on her Twitter account by asking the Minister of Finance to take care "rather of putting an end to the cancer of welfare that massively affects the CAC 40. Higher prices for us, billions in aid for them, that’s the problem." His colleague and Insoumis Thomas Portes, pointed out on the same social network that "social fraud" is estimated at 1 to 2 billion euros per year. On the other hand, tax evasion is between 80 and 100 billion euros per year," inviting Bruno Le Maire to "go see in Switzerland".

For his part, the ecologist deputy Aurélien Taché believes that the French "are above all fed up that people like Bernard Arnault, the richest man in the world, ask for Belgian nationality to no longer pay taxes in France". According to her, the French "have understood" that Bruno Le Maire’s goal was to "create a diversion". In his address on Monday evening, President Emmanuel Macron promised to "strengthen the control of illegal immigration", announcing "strong measures from May" against delinquency and social and tax fraud.