Nearly one-third of people in France entitled to some form of state aid fail to benefit – often because they are put off by the complexity of the application procedure, an investigation has found, reports Radio France Internationale.
The public purse savings are estimated at several billion euros each year.
The evidence is startling. People with disabilities, those looking for work, or who need a hand to feed and clothe their children have all confronted the bureaucratic wall behind which the French state aid to which they are entitled is concealed.
Some struggle on to the end. Others – an estimated 30 percent of those with some form of entitlement – simply give up.
Since the savings to the state are considerable, there is not much political pressure to make access to the social assistance labyrinth any easier.
An investigation by Marjolaine Koch, a journalist at Radio France, suggests that the problem is embedded in the French administrative system, with the same problems being confronted by would-be applicants across a broad range of state agencies.
Koch relates the struggles of a mother of a seven-year-old child with Down's syndrome.
In order to qualify for a few hours of home help, have her daughter given special assistance in school, and get repaid for the child's sessions with an occupational therapist, the mother had to complete several different questionnaires, each running to 20 pages.
Despite the woman's perseverance, her application for a special allowance was refused, without explanation. It took two visits to the courts to have her daughter's rights respected. She wonders how many families simply give up in the face of such administrative obstacles.
Read more of this report from RFI.
See also this report from The Times on related problems in the UK.