The solidarity fund, set up at the start of the crisis to pay 1,500 euros to small businesses but also to provide aid to companies, including larger structures, affected by the crisis, is it the subject of a massive fraud?
France Info affirms on Tuesday that Bercy would have identified 300,000 “possibly fraudulent” files.
A large number of suspicious files which are the subject of further investigations by the services of Bercy.
For the moment the only official figure is that of the Court of Auditors which assesses these frauds at 100 million euros.
But Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, suspects that they are actually much more important.
It is also in this context, that he announced Monday that 300,000 controls were currently carried out before paying the funds to companies that have made a request.
Systematic control for the most aided companies
In addition, 93,000 controls are also carried out a posteriori.
“These are restaurateurs who say they didn't get what they owed.
It's normal.
Either these are suspicions of fraud that deserve to be checked, ”the Minister of the Economy explained on RTL, recalling that 14 billion euros were distributed in 2020 to almost two million French companies.
Likewise, Franceinfo also reveals that systematic controls will now become systematic for companies receiving aid of 30,000 euros or more.
In addition, as more than 100,000 files arrive every day and this leads to payment delays, Bruno Le Maire has announced a reinforcement of its teams with 250 hires of contract workers, to better keep up with the pace and check that the requests for assistance are justified.
Increased vigilance also on partial unemployment
The same change of tone is taking place in the processing of short-time work cases with 27 billion euros paid in 2020. Several investigations are underway at the Directorate General of Labor to verify applications.
Fraud represents less than 1% of the total amount allocated, according to the Ministry of Labor.
Elisabeth Borne estimated that the government was able to recover 90% of the money unduly paid.
Another file: after three weeks of automating work stoppages for Covid-19, the Health Insurance only records 3,000 per day on average.
In general, the duration of these stops is less than two days, the time to do tests and to isolate yourself.
According to France Info, Health Insurance draws a positive conclusion, believing that this system is effective in stopping the virus.
