“Today, we are in the wall,” warns sociologist Julien Damon

Julien Damon, sociologist and scientific advisor to the National School of Social Security, was invited to “La Matinale” from franceinfo on Monday, November 3, on the eve of the examination by deputies of the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) for 2026.

This text corresponds to part of the transcription of the interview above. Click on the video to watch it in full.

Jean-Baptiste Marteau: The Court of Auditors will publish a report on Monday on the state of Social Security. Will the diagnosis be alarming?

Julien Damon: The Court of Auditors itself had very harsh words this year. We have the impression of a day without end, and for a very long time, in terms of the accumulated difficulties of Social Security and more broadly of public accounts.

Last May, the Court of Auditors spoke of a “risk of liquidity crisis”. What does that mean? Is this a risk of bankruptcy for a company?

Yes, but it’s not just Social Security, it’s public accounts overall. Social Security, what you have to keep in mind is that it’s the biggest piece. 60% of public spending is social protection spending. Today we are up against the wall, it’s true. Social protection is revenue and expenditure. If in Parliament, in the general fight, we emerge with more spending and less revenue, the wall is even closer.

The “Security gap” can be perfectly legitimized. Covid, everyone understands that in a given year, we have a Social Security deficit. What is annoying is the addition of deficits and today debt. We are really facing a very serious problem.

We have been hearing for decades that we must put an end to the abuse of sick leave. We haven’t found the miracle recipe yet?

No, we didn’t find it. The key subject is that of responsibility. It’s not parliamentarians who decide everything, it’s health professionals, and then it’s all of us. Any small fraud, even any small exaggeration, is problematic. Social Security is not just Social Security in the sense of health insurance. The first issue, the first expense, is pensions.

In view of the political situation, parliamentarians will ask from Tuesday for new expenditure which will have to be financed…

In financial laws in France (that of the State and that of financing Social Security), in both cases, what we are looking for is balance. It’s been a very long time since we’ve been in balance, but every year we still manage to balance the budgets. The ambition of these texts is to make it possible to close budgets, but we are no longer looking for financial balance in the sense that we would have revenues that finance expenses. And when revenues don’t finance expenses, what do we do? We are going into debt and today, that is the major problem.

Click on the video to watch the interview in full.