While deputies prepare to begin examining in session the draft Social Security budget for 2026, the Court of Auditors is sounding the alarm again.
In a report published this Monday, the Three Wise Men observe that the Social Security deficit should reach 23,000 million euros in 2025, or 7,700 million euros more in one year. In question: income grows at the same rate as national wealth (+2.5%), while “expenses go much further” (+3.6%), specified the first president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici.
In detail, with the exception of the family branch, all branches are deficient, in particular the illness branch (-17.2 billion) and the old-age branch (-5.8 billion).
In short, the Social Security deficit “will have more than doubled and is now, excluding the exceptional years of the Covid crisis, at the highest level observed since 2012”, underlines the Court. A situation that reflects “a loss of control of the trajectory of social finances in a period that is not characterized by an acute economic or financial crisis.”
The draft budget for 2026 marks “the fragile beginning of a recovery”
The draft budget for 2026 presented by the Government plans to reduce the Social Security deficit from 23 to 17.5 billion euros. An effort divided between 9,000 million in savings in expenses and 2,100 million euros in income measures.
For the Court of Auditors, this draft budget would effectively allow us to begin a recovery of social accounts, but this remains “fragile” because it is “subject to strong uncertainties”, in particular.
Firstly, “income forecasts respond to a proactive macroeconomic scenario,” say the Wise Men. So, the spending effort is “significant but concentrated on a small number of measures” that risk not appearing in the final budget. Among them, 2.5 billion euros saved thanks to the freezing of benefits or 2.3 billion thanks to the doubling of medical deductibles. For Pierre Moscovici, the goal of controlling social spending in 2026 seems “very ambitious.”
Source: BFM TV
