French Social Security Pays Millions to Deceased Retirees in Morocco, Audit Reveals

Social Security, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, is in poor health. This is evidenced by a nearly 500-page report published Monday by the Court of Auditors. The year 2020, marked by the Covid pandemic, saw Social Security sink: a deficit of nearly 40 billion euros was recorded. This dark period continued until 2024. The 2024 fiscal year of Social Security concluded with a deficit of 15.3 billion euros, which is 4.8 billion euros more than the 10 billion euros obtained in 2023, reports Le Parisien. And the outlook is worse for 2025, with the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS) projecting an imbalance of 22.1 billion euros.

More seriously, the system put in place since 1996 to amortize the debt is running out of steam, the report’s authors remind us. "It’s alarming. In two years, the deficit will double," Pierre Moscovici, first president of the institution, worried on Monday morning. "There have been overly optimistic growth and revenue forecasts. There is a lack of control, particularly in the health branch expenditures, which represent 90% of the deficit."

Faced with this unflattering picture, the Court of Auditors calls on political leaders to reform the system while immediately activating the lever of savings. It also proposes targeted savings measures for sectors that have particularly contributed to the recent Social Security deficit.

The recovery of Social Security will also involve combating fraud in pensions paid abroad. It was discovered that part of the six billion euros in pension benefits - from the general and/or complementary scheme - sent each year to 1.1 million retirees living abroad "is fraudulent," the report indicates, specifying that "experiments conducted between 2020 and 2023 with the physical summoning of 4,000 elderly retirees in Algeria (1% of the total) and 2,500 in Morocco (3% of the total), revealed that unreported deaths represented between 3% and 22% of the summoned sample." The Court of Auditors proposes to intensify controls.

"Each year, 5% of benefits, or 18.5 billion euros, were unduly paid to insured individuals, professionals, or hospitals," the same report specifies, highlighting that 10.3 billion euros of the 18.5 billion euros "are detected overpayments." In total, 9 billion euros have been recovered. Additional efforts must be made to recover about 10 billion euros.