French government launches national plan to combat illegal work

The government announced on Monday May 22 the launch of a new national plan to combat illegal work over the period 2023-2027, with 34 measures to “better control”, “better sanctions” and “repair damage”. This plan was presented by Olivier Dussopt on the occasion of the Interministerial Anti-Fraud Committee devoted to the fight against illegal work, said the Ministry of Labor in a press release. It aims to coordinate the action of State services around “two priority objectives”: “better control” – which involves “targeting, prioritizing and strengthening controls” – and “better sanctions, better recovery and repair of harm related to illegal work”.

Among the 34 measures, the plan intends to “ensure the exemplary nature of major sporting events” such as the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games in 2024, with controls but also the publication of guides, for example on the rules governing the use of volunteering. It also intends to “better prevent fraud in posted work” by informing employers and employees “of their obligations and their rights”, while in 2021, excluding road transport, “200,000 employees have been posted at least once to France. by companies established abroad”, the country being one of the main EU Member States receiving such workers.

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The plan also provides for the simplification of the so-called “blacklist” device, namely a penalty for the dissemination of court decisions on a single website of the Ministry of Labor condemning a natural or legal person. It intends to “fight against false statuses” (such as false self-employed people via the use of the auto/micro-entrepreneur scheme for salaried jobs) in particular by developing common strategies vis-à-vis certain digital platforms.

A shortfall of 5.2 to 6.6 billion euros in 2021

Added to this are actions to combat human trafficking and the prevention of situations of unfit housing, or even the implementation of a new power of cyber-investigations for the search and observation of breaches of illegal work on the internet. Other measures should allow workers to be more “restored in their rights” or “advance the recovery of fines imposed and evaded contributions”.

The ministry underlines in its plan that “illegal work in all its forms remains a widespread phenomenon”, with “a rate of evaded contributions ranging between 2.2 and 2.7% resulting in a loss of earnings of 5.2 to 6.6 billion euros for social security and unemployment insurance in 2021”. The rate of hidden employees, estimated from random checks by Urssaf, is “around 2%”, with peaks in certain sectors, such as construction (8%), road transport (9% ), or even hotels, cafes and restaurants (UNHCR, 6.7%), continues the document.

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The ministry recalls that in 2021, 3,642 reports were recorded and that 7,056 offenses were the subject of criminal proceedings (compared to 7,190 in 2020). There may be several offenses per procedure. The proportion of offenses related to concealed work represented 76% of all offenses, ahead of the employment of foreigners without work permits (13%). An increase in the use of administrative sanctions was also observed, in particular administrative closures decided by the prefect, with 633 orders for the temporary closure of establishments notified in 2021 (compared to 504 in 2020).