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Minimum incomes and benefits, Éric Zemmour

RSA (minimum income), amount and conditions: RSA capped at three years to « réduire l'assistanat » [“reduce welfare dependency”]

Direction of change: decrease, compared with current law.

The lever. Revenu de solidarité active (RSA, minimum income): amount, eligibility conditions, and hours of activity or support required of recipients. Direction rule: ↑ higher amount or relaxed conditions.

« Il faut absolument réduire l'assistanat. Je proposerais de plafonner à 3 ans le versement du RSA. […] Limiter le RSA, je vous l'ai dit tout à l'heure, sans contrepartie, à 3 ans, 4 milliards 8. »1

Translation by the editorsWe absolutely must reduce welfare dependency. I would propose capping payment of the RSA at 3 years. […] Limiting the RSA, as I told you earlier, with nothing required in return, to 3 years: 4.8 billion.

Words of Éric Zemmour, BFMTV, « Face à BFM » et débat avec Jean-François Copé (vidéo sur la chaîne YouTube du candidat, 49 min 00 s et 56 min 05 s), 17 September 2026. Position taken from public statements, not from a written 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

+€4.8bn

per year, gain for the public accounts. « Limiter le RSA […] sans contrepartie, à 3 ans, 4 milliards 8 » [“Limiting the RSA […] with nothing required in return, to 3 years: 4.8 billion”] (BFMTV, 17 September 2026); Sarah Knafo's plan (budget2027.fr, measure 4): « Limitation à trois ans de l'allocation RSA pour les bénéficiaires en capacité de travailler » [“Three-year limit on the RSA allowance for recipients able to work”], €4.8bn.

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

+€4.5bn

per year for the public accounts, saving, range +€4.5bn to +€7.2bn.

The calculation

  • RSA payment limited to three years (end of entitlement beyond, for all recipients, without exemption; static effect): Option costed by the source: a gain of €6.3bn (4.5 to 7.2) per year. Central value brought down to the smallest amount (€4.5bn).

Assumption by the editors. Partial costing. Reading adopted: the RSA (minimum income) stops being paid after three years to all its recipients (DREES: at least 37% and at most 59% of recipients have been receiving it for three years or more). Not costed: the condition set by the candidate (« sans contrepartie » [“without anything in return”]), and that of Sarah Knafo's plan (recipients « en capacité de travailler » [“able to work”]), which exempt an unmeasured share of recipients. Static: shifts to other benefits and returns to work not counted.

Coefficient calculated by the editors from solidarites.gouv.fr, Revalorisation annuelle au 1er avril 2026: the position is marked as an assumption by the editors.

Central value brought down to the smallest amount: gain acknowledged as overestimated, since the recipients exempted by the « sans contrepartie » [“without anything in return”] condition are not removed; the central value is brought down to the lower bound of the costing (at least 37% of recipients, present for five years or more).

Figure announced by the candidate: no gap calculated: costing based on an assumption by the editors.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Flat-rate amount of €651.69 per month for a single person with no resources since 1 April 2026 (+0.8%). Open from age 25, and from 18 to 24 for single parents or young people with a certain period of work. Automatic registration with France Travail and commitment contract since 1 January 2025 (Act No. 2023-1196). Spending: €12,218m in 2023, including the Christmas bonus (Drees), and €12.2bn paid by the Caf (family allowance funds) in 2025; 1.84 million recipient households at end-2024 (Drees), 1.89 million in June 2026.

Horizon. Full year, €bn per year

Limits. Option versement-automatique-rsa: same costing as the recours-total-rsa option of the versement-automatique lever (DREES, Dossiers no. 92: €750m of RSA (minimum income) not paid per quarter in 2018, i.e. €3bn per year, 2018 euros, not updated), for a position filed under the RSA; the two overlap entirely (declared overlap). Option limite-trois-ans (calculation by the editors, 18 October 2026): RSA spending (€12.2bn paid by the Caf (family allowance funds) in 2025) × share of beneficiaries (recipients and spouses) present for at least three years, which DREES does not publish as such: at least 37% (five years or more, end of 2023: lower bound, €4.5bn), at most 59% (two years or more: upper bound, €7.2bn), about 52% by spreading the two-to-five-year band (22%) evenly: central value, €6.3bn. The share of beneficiaries is taken as the share of spending. Static: neither shifts to other benefits (accommodation, social assistance, other minimum benefits) nor returns to work are counted; an exemption (people unfit for work, on a social support pathway, or who fulfil a requirement in return) reduces the saving in an unmeasured proportion. The former coefficient (€0.13bn per % increase in the flat-rate amount, i.e. 1% of 2022 spending) is withdrawn: the allowance is differential, and raising the flat-rate amount by €X adds €X to each household whatever its resources. The 1.89 million households × €6.52 (1% of the flat-rate amount for a single person) × 12 months alone give €0.15bn per %, before the family scale and new entrants. The exact cost requires the distribution of households according to the family scale (DREES, CNAF) or a microsimulation (OpenFisca), not available here. The flat-rate amount of the in-work benefit (prime d'activité) is a separate parameter. Non-take-up (34%) reduces the actual cost. Coefficient used: the State set at €1.40bn per year, from September 2018, the cost borne by the départements due to the exceptional increases in the flat-rate amount from 2013 to 2017 (five decrees, about +10% in total excluding inflation), i.e. €0.14bn per point, in 2018 euros. This figure relates to the RSA alone (the in-work benefit is another lever) and includes households that entered thanks to the raising of the threshold. Updated to the 2026 flat-rate amount (€651.69 against €550.93 in 2018, i.e. +18%): 0.14 × 651.69 / 550.93 ≈ €0.17bn per point, central value and upper bound since 18 October 2026 (calculation by the editors, in 2026 euros); lower bound, €0.15bn, the mechanical effect alone on households already receiving the allowance (1.89 million × €6.52 × 12 months, DREES and 2026 order), before the family scale. The entry of new households opened up by a large increase in the flat-rate amount is included only within the limit of the 2013 to 2017 increases (about 10%): beyond that, it is not costed, and a position that goes further is partial. Full take-up (versement-automatique lever) would increase this cost. External benchmarks, not counted, for an income guarantee at the poverty line, a broader scope than an increase in the flat-rate amount: €36bn according to iFRAP (April 2022, threshold of €1,063, of which €9.5bn for young people); about €25bn according to La France insoumise (2021 amendments); €30bn in its counter-budget of November 2017.

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 Éric Zemmour

  1. BFMTV, « Face à BFM » et débat avec Jean-François Copé (vidéo sur la chaîne YouTube du candidat, 49 min 00 s et 56 min 05 s), 17 September 2026. Words of Éric Zemmour. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme. Read the source (BFMTV, « Face à BFM » et débat avec Jean-François Copé (vidéo sur la chaîne YouTube du candidat, 49 min 00 s et 56 min 05 s)).

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