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Extra checks after 700 French businesses suspected of abusing coronavirus furlough schemes

The French government will double efforts to crack down on misuse of the state unemployment scheme set up during the coronavirus, the Labour Minister said on Tuesday, after 700 businesses were found to be suspected of fraud.

Published: 28 July 2020 15:12 CEST

Extra checks after 700 French businesses suspected of abusing coronavirus furlough schemes

French Labour Minister Elisabeth Borne. Photo: AFP

“We will be uncompromising with those who hijack the system,” Elisabeth Borne said in an interview with RTL.

Of the first 25,000 checks, 700 businesses – 1,400 cases in total – were suspected of having misused the government scheme chômage partiel (partial unemployment), which saw millions of French receive state help during the coronavirus lockdown.

Fraudes au chômage partiel : 700 entreprises suspectées sur les 25.000 contrôles réalisés, annonce Élisabeth Borne #RTLMatin https://t.co/B7bnxjq9Nf

— RTL France (@RTLFrance) July 28, 2020

As the coronavirus crisis hit France with full force in March the government ramped up state aid to businesses, spending billions on state-schemes to prevent mass-layoffs and chain bankruptcies.

EXPLAINED: This is France's new plan to help workers and self-employed

But some businesses seem to have abused the schemes. Of the 700 businesses being investigated for misconduct, Borne said some were suspected of having forged identities of employees to get state funding while others were suspected of having asked their employees to work while on the scheme.

An additional 50,000 checks will be done before the end of the summer, Borne said.

Any business found to have committed fraud faces up to two years of prison and up to €30,000 in fines, in addition to being excluded from state help schemes for five years and having to reimburse the money they received.

Member comments

Anonymous - 28 July 2020 at 19:55 CEST

it will be difficult to check and recover monies. Surely a modicum of checking should have been made rather than , it would seem, simply trusting employers for the truth.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.