Déchiffrer 2027

FREN

Minimum incomes and benefits, Fabien Roussel

Family allowances: Return to a universal family policy

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Benefits paid to families from the second child: universality, means-related adjustment, payment from the first child. Direction rule: ↑ higher allowances or open to more families.

« Les communistes agissent pour le développement d’une Sécurité sociale du XXIe siècle, répondant aux besoins humains, prenant en charge les soins à 100 %, y compris la perte d’autonomie, en lien avec le développement des services publics, revenant à une politique familiale universelle et garantissant une retraite de haut niveau, dès 60 ans à taux plein. »1

Translation by the editorsCommunists are working for the development of a 21st-century social security, meeting human needs, covering care at 100%, including loss of autonomy, linked to the development of public services, returning to a universal family policy and guaranteeing a high-level pension from 60 at the full rate.

PCF, « Un communisme de conquêtes », projet de base commune du 40e congrès adopté par le Conseil national le 29 mars 2026, 29 March 2026. Position taken from a document of the candidate’s party or movement, not from a presidential programme.

No programme released. Positions taken from public statements, words of associates or documents of the candidate’s party, each dated and sourced; last recorded on 18 October 2026.

Encoding

Position linked to an option of the cost schedule, with no parameter to set: see the costing.

Costing

Announced by the candidate

not announced

The cited source does not cost this measure.

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

−€1bn

per year for the public accounts, new spending, range −€1bn to −€0.8bn.

The calculation

  • End of income-related modulation (return to universal amounts): Option costed by the source: a cost of €1bn (0.75 to 1) per year.

Assumption by the editors. The « retour » [“return”] to a universal family policy is read as the end of the income-based modulation of family allowances (2015).

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Family allowances paid from the 2nd child: €153.01 per month for 2 children since 1 April 2026 (basic amount), adjusted according to income since 2015, uprated every 1 April in line with inflation over the previous twelve months. Age supplement postponed from 14 to 18 for children born on or after 1 March 2012 (Decree No. 2026-138, in force on 1 March 2026). Spending: €13,909m in 2025, all schemes (Commission des comptes de la sécurité sociale (Social Security Accounts Committee), October 2026), €13,711m forecast for 2026 and €13,407m for 2027; 4.69 million households receiving benefits from the Caf (family allowance funds) in December 2025.

Horizon. Full year, €bn per year, in 2025 euros for the coefficient; each option in the euros of its source

Limits. Coefficient calculated by the editors: 1% of €13.909bn (2025, central value), of €13.407bn forecast for 2027 after the postponement of the age supplement (lower bound) and rounded to 0.14 as upper bound; the former coefficient (0.13, 1% of €13.04bn in 2022) was replaced on 18 October 2026. The text introducing means-testing (LFSS 2015) is not cited at source. End of means-testing: low = €750m per year (National Assembly fact-finding mission, 2020, report no. 3168, based on a 2016 Cnaf study, amount at the time); central and high = yield of means-testing estimated at about €1bn in 2025 by the Direction de la sécurité sociale (same report). The Senate costed abolition at €830m in 2022. From the first child: DSS costing for €70 per month without means-testing; central = net cost after the decrease in RSA and in-work benefit (€1.8bn), high = gross cost (€2.8bn); the National Assembly's LexImpact unit gives €3.58bn for €75 per month means-tested (different scope, not counted). A position that does not state the amount paid for the first child is not linked to this option. Age supplement: €1.28bn per year at full roll-out, reached in 2030 (€1.17bn in 2029), and €210m in the first year: costing by the Direction de la sécurité sociale on Cnaf data, taken up by the HCFEA (note adopted on 10 March 2026). The first three options are each costed all other things being equal: ending means-testing also applies to the age supplement, hence a slight overlap if both are adopted (declared overlap). Option reserve-francais (decision of 18 October 2026, same rule for all candidates who reserve a benefit for French nationals): lower bound, share of foreigners in the population (9.1% in 2025, Insee) × family allowance spending (€13,909m in 2025), i.e. €1.27bn; upper bound, the share of allowances paid to foreign recipients, which neither the Cnaf nor the Drees publishes: pending a reply from the Cnaf (request sent), it is taken as equal to the lower bound and the position is marked partial. Benchmarks not counted: at 31 December 2013, about 2% of family allowance beneficiaries were nationals of the European Economic Area or Switzerland and 6% of other States (headcounts, ministerial reply to written question no. 29143, Cnaf data); about 11% of the households receiving benefits from the Caf, all benefits combined, are of foreign nationality (Cnaf, December 2025, no reference year). As foreign families have more children on average, the share of spending may exceed the share of households. Reading: nationality of the recipient; a family in which one parent is French and the other is not could remain covered, which would reduce the saving. Legal compliance not assessed (principle of equality, European Union law, bilateral social security agreements), as elsewhere in the cost schedule. Option revenu-familial-240 (calculation by the editors, 18 October 2026): €240 × 12 months × 13,868,000 minor children living in families (Insee, 2023 census, France excluding Mayotte), i.e. €39.94bn gross, minus the two abolished benefits that the measure names and that fall under this lever: family allowances, age supplement included (€13,909m in 2025), and the complément familial (€2,593m), i.e. €23.4bn net; upper bound with the spending forecast for 2027 (€13,407m and €2,605m, CCSS), €23.9bn. The family quotient, which the measure also abolishes, is counted under the quotient-familial lever (€12.5bn to €16.5bn). Not counted: the condition of five years of professional activity and lawful residence, which excludes an unpublished number of families (the cost is therefore overestimated accordingly), the other merged schemes that the measure does not name, and the third-child bonus (separate measure). The candidate counts 14 million minors (€40.3bn).

How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.

This lever in the method · Costing for Fabien Roussel

  1. PCF, « Un communisme de conquêtes », projet de base commune du 40e congrès adopté par le Conseil national le 29 mars 2026, 29 March 2026, p. 25. Position taken from a document of the candidate’s party or movement, not from a presidential programme. Read the source (PCF, « Un communisme de conquêtes », projet de base commune du 40e congrès adopté par le Conseil national le 29 mars 2026).

Contest this encoding (prefilled email; procedure and deadlines)