Lhe immigration law adopted on December 19 constitutes a political break on many levels which would amply justify its rapid abandonment. One of them is the area of social policies. In terms of form, by introducing a restriction linked to nationality on access to a social security benefit, it breaks with its historical principles, establishing a direct link between contribution and affiliation. Basically, the reform, if implemented, would cause significant impoverishment of families and children, French or not, with dramatic short and long term social consequences.
The voted text introduces for foreigners, outside the European Union, a period of exclusion of three months to five years in access to housing assistance, but also a period of exclusion of two and a half years to five years in the access to family allowances. This last measure, which was found until now in the program of the National Rally, and not in the presidential program, constitutes a break with the principle established by the order of October 4, 1945 which establishes “a Social Security organization intended to guarantee workers and their families against risks of all kinds likely to reduce or eliminate their earning capacity, to cover maternity and family expenses that they bear”.
Certainly, in France there are benefits such as active solidarity income (RSA) subject to a five-year exclusion period for resident foreigners with serious social consequences. But the RSA is not a social security benefit: it is a public aid system financed by the budgets of the departments, themselves subsidized by the State. No social insurance mechanism has until now been affected by such exclusion based on nationality criteria.
In fact, the nationality criterion has not been, since the beginning, in the Social Security repertoire. This, inspired by the “Bismarckian” paradigm of social insurance, was built in a contributory logic of affiliation emanating from employees: the community of insured persons is the community of contributors, thus building social citizenship and the bases of a social democracy.
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Even social security benefits that have become “universal” over time, such as those relating to illness or family, have until now retained dimensions of “contributory” specific to social insurance. They are financed by levies – social contributions, generalized social contribution (CSG) and tax levies replacing exempt contributions – levied first only on employee income then on all income, and provide benefits to the all affiliated policyholders.
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