The French Social Protection System

Social protection encompasses all systems designed to protect individuals against “social risks” (illness, maternity, disability, old age, unemployment, etc.) and their economic consequences. As such it plays an important role in safeguarding social cohesion. A mixture of insurance and solidarity mechanisms, it is perfectly in tune with the notion of citizenship.

In France, the origins of social protection can be traced back to the trade guilds of the Middle Ages, and later the mutual aid societies. In the second half of the nineteenth century, social assistance systems developed progressively, often at the instigation of employers driven by the Catholic social ethic, and then with the introduction of the first social legislation.

In 1930, the advent of social insurance in the modern sense provided workers with protection against certain risks including industrial injury, disability, maternity, old age and death. During the Second World War, the National Council of the Resistance developed the contours of the system that is today at the centre of social protection: social security. Founded in the wake of the Liberation, the system was instituted by the Ordinance of 4 October 1945, which was followed by other founding texts. At that time, only one person in two had access to benefits. Little by little, coverage was extended to the entire population, while the range of benefits grew. The goal of creating of a universal scheme was soon to be thwarted however due to distinctions in employee status (cadres, i.e. management and executive staff, versus non-cadres, for example, as regards the question of supplementary retirement schemes) and opposition from certain socio-professional groups (refusal of the self-employed to merge with the scheme for salaried workers, for example). These factors explain the fact that in most branches of social security (with the exception of unemployment insurance), social protection is today a pluralistic system involving many different players. In terms of number of employees, the largest scheme is the general scheme for employees in commerce, services and industry.

At the time of its creation, the French system was inspired more by Bismarckian principles (collective insurance coverage within a professional framework) than by the Beveridgian philosophy (social solidarity). Over the years, the solidarity dimension has gained increasing prominence (with the expansion of non-contributory benefits), though the system is still underpinned by the principle of insurance.