Tax expenditures, subsidies and fraud, Éric Zemmour
Tax and social security fraud: Fight against benefit fraud, benefits withdrawn from offenders (Knafo plan)
Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.
The lever. Combating tax, contribution and benefit fraud: inspection staff numbers, sanctions, expected revenue. Direction rule: ↑ stronger action.
« Lutte contre la fraude sociale et retrait des aides sociales pour les délinquants et criminels. »1Translation by the editorsFight against social benefit fraud and withdrawal of social benefits from offenders and criminals.
Words of Sarah Knafo, MEP, Reconquête, budget2027.fr, « 140 milliards d’économies par an : le plan de Sarah Knafo » (page lue le 13 octobre 2026), 13 October 2026. Words of an associate of the candidate: they do not formally commit the candidate.
Link to the candidacy: Éric Zemmour adopts this plan as his own: « Nous, avec Sarah Knafo, nous voulons faire 140 milliards d'euros de baisses » [“We, with Sarah Knafo, want to make 140 billion euros of cuts”] (BFMTV, 17 September 2026).
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
No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
amount not broken down
Amount announced with no readable annual amount for this position alone: €2bn to €3bn of savings (Sarah Knafo's plan, measure 5).
Published costings
none
No external costing of this position recorded to date.
Our calculation
not costed
Target of €2bn to €3bn with no detailed enforcement resources: the cost schedule costs revenue recovered on the basis of the resources committed, not a target.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Tax audits in 2024: €20.1bn of duties and penalties assessed for collection, €11.4bn actually collected (Cour des comptes, December 2025). No official costing of tax fraud: for the Cour, « nul ne peut aujourd'hui se hasarder à affirmer que ce montant est proche de 30 ou de 130 Md€ » [“no one today can venture to assert that this amount is close to €30bn or €130bn”]. VAT gap: €6bn to €10bn (DGFiP). Social security fraud estimated at €13bn, of which €2.1bn detected and €0.6bn recovered (HCFiPS, 2024). Anti-fraud bill under discussion in 2026.
Horizon. Phased in over several years; full year 2032 to be justified by resources (staff, tools).
Limits. The amounts of « fraude totale » [“total fraud”] often cited (€80bn to €100bn, Solidaires) are judged by the Cour des comptes to have no method. A promise of yield from the fight against fraud is costed on the revenue recovered, not on the estimated fraud, and related to the resources committed. Coefficient calculated by the editors (10% of the €11.4bn recovered; €20.1bn issued for collection as the upper bound). The costing is fragile: low confidence index.
- Cour des comptes, La lutte contre la fraude fiscale, 2025-12-16: « Celles-ci sont passées de 12,2 Md€ en 2015 à 11,4 Md€ en 2024 ... ces résultats retrouvent leur niveau de départ (20,1 Md€ en 2024 contre 21,2 Md€ en 2015) ... Nul ne peut aujourd'hui se hasarder à affirmer que ce montant est proche de 30 ou de 130 Md€ ... La fourchette finalement dégagée par la DGFiP (entre 6 et 10 Md€ ...) »
- HCFiPS, Fraude sociale 2024, infographie, 2024-09-25: « MONTANTS ÉVALUÉS ... 13 MD€ ; FRAUDES CONSTATÉES ET STOPPÉES 2,1 MD€ DONT 0,5 MD€ ÉVITÉES ; MONTANTS RECOUVRÉS 0,6 MD€ »
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.
- budget2027.fr, « 140 milliards d’économies par an : le plan de Sarah Knafo » (page lue le 13 octobre 2026), 13 October 2026. Words of Sarah Knafo, MEP, Reconquête. Words of an associate of the candidate: they do not formally commit the candidate. Read the source (budget2027.fr, « 140 milliards d’économies par an : le plan de Sarah Knafo » (page lue le 13 octobre 2026)).
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