The Prime Minister on Friday announced a draft law on a “single social allowance” for December. This single social payment aims to receive several benefits in one day. This makes it possible to “bring together activity bonuses, RSA and some housing assistance”, detailed Sébastien Lecornu, speaking from the French Departmental Conference in Albi (Tarn).
“This single social benefits policy will be the subject of a swift draft law, as it will be submitted to the Council of Ministers in December,” the Prime Minister said. For Matignon tenants, this measure will allow savings “not on the beneficiaries” but “management savings”.
“We can no longer explain that we have so many authorities managing different allocations,” he told congress. “In the era of data, digital technology and AI, it is highly unlikely that in a country like France, we will not be able to provide a single social benefit,” said the Prime Minister.
“Now is the time to finally create a real social.gouv.fr that allows social workers” and departments responsible for social assistance, “to be able to provide personalized support” to beneficiaries, he added.
Fighting fraud and lack of guarantee of rights
Such “reasonable” measures, according to Sébastien Lecornu, were able to “reconcile many people with different political sensibilities”, although these allowances were mainly requested by the right-wing.
This was a measure particularly dear to the leader of Les Républicains deputies, Laurent Wauquiez, who recommended a “single social benefit” limited to “70% of the minimum wage” to counter “conditionality”.
Sébastien Lecornu believes that a single social benefit would be useful in providing “fair payments”, by fighting fraud and lack of guarantee of rights.
For associations that defend the most vulnerable groups, the idea of simplifying and harmonizing the basics of social benefits is a good thing considering the level of non-recourse in some of them. But these reforms must not be carried out at the expense of the most vulnerable groups, they stressed, warning against the temptation of “downward harmonization”.
Macron’s 2017 campaign promises
The risk of this potential “loser” was pointed out in 2018 by France Stratégie, an organization affiliated with Matignon, which stated that merging some services could “with constant budgets” lead to a reduction in resources for 3.55 million households.
Debate about this policy has been around for a long time, as it was a campaign promise by Emmanuel Macron in 2017. In 2018, the inter-ministerial delegate tasked with fighting poverty, Olivier Noblecourt, wanted these payments to be implemented “in 2019 or in 2020”. At that time it only concerned Disabled Adult Allowance (AAH), RSA and Activity Bonus.
In late 2024 Michel Barnier, then Prime Minister, planned to launch the project in 2025, then taken over by François Bayrou, but has not yet provided the scope and related services.
