French PM plans to limit access to benefits for foreigners in France
Unveiling his plans for a cost-cutting 2027 Budget, French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu has proposed restricting the access of foreigners legally resident in France to benefits.
It’s that time of year when the French prime minister unveils his plans for next year’s budget, before debates in parliament begin.
This year, PM Sébastien Lecornu has quite a balancing act – trying to cut costs in order to tackle France’s huge and increasingly worrying debt, but also trying to attract enough support in the deeply divided parliament to get the thing passed.
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The final text of the budget will almost certainly be very different to Lecornu’s first draft, as its tortured parliamentary journey will require many amendments and compromises – and that’s assuming that he manages to get it passed at all, and avoids the budget-related fate of his predecessors.
But with the fairly substantial caveat out of the way, there was one part of his proposal that caught our eye; a plan to restrict access to certain social benefits for foreigners in France.
Lecornu wants to introduce a “délai de carence” for non-French nationals – the legal term means a void period or waiting time during which a person is not entitled to a certain thing. For example, the first three days of sick leave are a ‘délai de carence‘, during which the worker is not normally entitled to sick pay.
In the context of the budget, Lecornu appears to mean that newly arrived foreigners in France will not be able to claim certain benefits – although he does not specify exactly how long this period will be.
Introducing the idea, he said: “When a foreign national arrives in France legally, they face no waiting period before their entitlements come into effect . . . Some may consider this a symbolic measure, whilst others, on the other side of the political spectrum, will no doubt cry foul, calling it a right-wing measure – but it is a common-sense measure.”
The waiting period would apply to ‘allocations sociales non contributives‘, he clarified – non-contributory social benefits – rather than benefits related to work.
Examples of these are the top-up benefit RSA (revenu de solidarité active), which many pensioners receive, housing benefits such as APL, family benefits via the CAF or benefits for older people.
It would not apply to chômage (unemployment benefit), although there is a de facto limit on that already, as people can only claim if they have worked in France for at least six months out of the previous 24 months.
Neither does it limit access to healthcare – foreigners can register in the French state-funded healthcare system after three months of legal residency, although the registration process usually takes between six months and a year. In the meantime, foreigners can still access healthcare but will have to pay up front – they can claim back the costs once their registration is completed.
His plans were denounced by left-wing parties and charities, including Pascal Brice, président de la Fédération des acteurs de la solidarité, who said that Lecornu “continues to throw foreigners to the wolves of public opinion and the far right, to make people believe that they are responsible for this country’s economic and social difficulties”.
