Worth setting the video for?

[Clair]

Tonight on FR3 at 23:35:

France3.fr

Today's Figaro intoduces the program thus:

[quote]Profession: unemployed, British RMI claimants who drive in 4x4. Tonight's program is devoted to those who benefit from the system.[/quote]

The program proposes to examin three areas where fraud is prevalent:

• Working "on the black", following an URSSAF inspector: employers, employees and ASSEDIC kits.
• RMI fraud, following an CAF inspector: the difficulties, the lack of means and the lack of sanctions.
• Health fraud: fraudulent sickness claims, doctors, private clinics and institutes.

[Cassis]

Is France really stuffed with Brits claiming RMI and other benefits?  Or is this a myth blown out of proportion to the size of the problem?  I have yet to meet a Brit claiming anything of the State, but it may just be the circles I mix in (like this Forum).

[Clair]

[quote user="Cassis"]Is France really stuffed with Brits claiming RMI and other benefits?  Or is this a myth blown out of proportion to the size of the problem?  I have yet to meet a Brit claiming anything of the State, but it may just be the circles I mix in (like this Forum). [/quote]

The program should answer your question, as it "wants to separate myths from reality".

[quote]L'idée était de déterminer la part de vérité et de fantasmes[/quote]

Having said that, Le Figaro is always keen to highlight whatever foreigners are up to, at the detriment of French people, so I would not take their description of the program as necessarily accurate, merely a red flag...

An English couple I know have been driving through the Limousin and the Creuse looking for a place to buy after selling their property in the Lot.

Their comments have ben illuminating: sitting outside a café in a small town, they overhear an English man asking another if he knows a roofer who can do a cheap repair on the house he's bought. The other replies he doesnt know a roofer, bu he know "a bloke" who's looking for some work on the black, as he doesn' want to have to make any Sécu payment. He's doing some electrics somewhere else at the mo, but should be finished by the following week...

[Cjlaws]

Thanks Claire. The France 3 summary doesn't mention the English at all. Three billion euros lost in unemloyment fraud alone certainly wasn't paid exclusively to Ango-Saxons:

La France des tricheurs

Le système de protection sociale français fait quasiment partie du patrimoine national. Entre Assedic, RMI ou CMU, il reverse des dizaines de milliards d'euros aux Français. Des sommes considérables qui peuvent attiser la convoitise, d'autant que ce système n'est pas sans faille. Des petits escrocs aux caïds de la pègre hexagonale, chacun tente d'empocher une part du gâteau. Aucune caisse, aucun organisme social ne leur échappe. Pour les Assedic, la fraude serait estimée à trois milliards d'euros. Selon les spécialistes, elle est massive, mais aussi peu risquée sur le plan pénal. Au pire, ceux qui se font attraper s'en tirent avec quelques mois avec sursis. Des élus et quelques spécialistes de la lutte anti-fraude se mobilisent.

I'll just have to set the video, as you suggest. It should be interesting.

[WJT]

I did see a part of it and unfortunately they did show a small report in the Dordogne of English taking advantage. They started the segment by panning the area and showing many signs written in English for gites and B&Bs [:(]. They had a reporter with a hidden camera being shown around by an Englishman speaking English. He showed her around a lovely property with many bedrooms and a pool and lots of land, apparently by someone that claimed a very low income. By the way when he said a farmer cuts his fields the translation given was paysan! So made it look even worse.

I do hope they can close this loop hole and crack down on this sort of thing because it certainly doesn't do the rest of us any good. I hope we don't start seeing a backlash here. Did anyone else see it?

[Cassis]

Damn!  Forgot to set the machine.  So overall, was it fair or was it twisted?

[YCCMB]

No idea, I couldn't watch it, but if the exchanges on the Fr3 forum are anything to go by, nobody seems to give a toss about the handful of Brits allegedly screwing the system. There is, however some interest in how Laurence Pineau-Valencienne has managed to claim RMI for the last 8 years, given that her dad Didier is obviously not short of a cent or two(although not exactly one of the most "upright" characters, perhaps?) .....

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I don't know about this precipitating a backlash, but certainly there

does seem to be a different breeze blowing around the place. I was told

Tuesday last by a pesron not normally given to tall tales that a

British builder working on the black in the Vendée had earlier this

year been fined €60,000.

Appearantly he had been working on a project in the middle of a town

and had made little or no attempt to disguise what he was doing having

scaffolded pretty much an entire building. I've not been able to

independently confirm this story, but certainly the head honcho at the

gendarmerie in that part of the département (La Châtaigneraie) has

something of a reputation of being, well, not obsessed exactly with

people working without declaring, but certainly keenly interested.

Aside from traffic duties, there's not a great deal else for the

guardians of the peace around here to get their teeth into, and he

seems to be ambitious....