Private detectives tail French workers to root out surging sick leave fraud

By Gabriel Stargardter

PARIS (Reuters) -Fabrice Lehmann caught sight of his target as he left his suburban Paris home, dressed for work. He began tailing him, trying to blend in with the commuters heading into the city.

A private detective since 1994, Lehmann has increasingly found himself tracking white-collar employees like the financial services worker, who forms part of a growing cohort of French people suspected of abusing their sick leave.

It is hard to assess how prevalent fraudulent absenteeism is in France, but experts say it has been rising alongside a 60% increase in sick leave since 2012 that now costs over 10 billion euros a year - money the country can ill afford as it grapples with a chronic budget crisis.

Former Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, who lost his job this month over proposals to slash the euro zone's largest deficit, had set his sights on France's ballooning sick leave costs as part of a plan to trim 5 billion euros in healthcare spending from the 2026 budget. He also vowed to crack down on fraud.

IT'S 'MONEY OR BETRAYAL', DETECTIVE SAYS

France's National Health Insurer said it prevented 42 million euros worth of sick leave fraud last year, more than double the 2023 total. That number is unlikely to capture the true scale of the problem as the insurer only began toughening its anti-fraud controls in 2022 and many audits are undertaken by professional sleuths contracted by private companies suspicious of employee behaviour.

Reuters spoke with five private eyes, who all said their fraudulent sick leave business was booming - so much so that some agencies have ditched traditional gigs like extra-marital affairs to focus solely on employees suspected of skipping work.

Private detective Baptiste Pannaud said his sick leave-related contracts had more than doubled in the last four years.

Lehmann said some of his targets were suspected of working with rivals, while others used the paid time off to launch their own companies. Lehmann's collaborator Patrice Le Bec, who was hired to conduct the Paris probe, said he had seen people sign off sick and head straight to the airport on vacation.

"Whether it's inside a company or in a married couple, it always boils down to two things," Lehmann said. "Money or betrayal."

THREE YEARS OF BENEFITS

French social security pays up to 41.47 euros per day to employees on sick leave, for a maximum duration of three years. However, employers top up much of the rest of employees' salaries for a defined period of time.

A 2024 report by the General Inspectorate of Finance found French public sector employees took 14.5 days off sick in 2022, while private sector workers took 11.7 days.

In Germany, where benefits are also generous, workers took an average of 14.8 days of sick leave in 2024, according to official statistics. They did not specify the breakdown by sector.

Bayrou said in a July speech that inspections revealed that half of sick leave periods over 18 months were unjustified, without giving details.

"This is not acceptable in a country like ours and in a period like the one we are living," he said.

Private detective Bruno Boivin said government pledges to curb fraud - such as targeting doctors writing dishonest sick notes - were "nonsense" as wrongdoing was rarely sanctioned. He said he had been hired by a large public transport firm where 30% of staff in one department were on sick leave.

"We built cases, caught people working elsewhere. Nobody was punished," he said. "The client stopped hiring us, saying: 'It's pointless, we can't fire them'."

Despite reforms earlier in Emmanuel Macron's presidency that made it easier to hire and fire workers, private detective David Liobard believed French workers still enjoyed far too many protections, sapping dynamism from the labour market.

The sleuths were shocked by some of the cases they had seen.

Boivin said his agency was struggling to track down a suspect who had been off work for a decade, but who checked in with his employer once every three years to renew his company car.

WIDESPREAD FRAUD IS 'FANTASY'

Absenteeism accelerated after COVID, according to official data. France's management culture does not help, experts said.

"We have mounting work pressure and a very vertical, authoritarian management style in France that no longer matches employees' need for empathy and collaborative change," economist Jean-Claude Delgenes said. "The system is oppressive."

Sabrina Ali Benali is an emergency doctor who co-authored the far-left party France Unbowed's healthcare proposals. She rejected corporate portrayals of overindulged workers. Although some people come to her looking for a spurious doctor's note to sign off leave, she said widespread fraud was "pure fantasy".

On the Paris outskirts, Lehmann followed his target onto a commuter train. The man, who he had been told was off sick since June, spent the journey hunched over a laptop apart from a couple of glances in Lehmann's direction.

The target became harder to track after changing onto the Paris subway, and Lehmann had to get closer to avoid losing him in the commuter swirl. When the next train arrived, the subject boarded, before immediately disembarking as the doors shut. He had given Lehmann the slip.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Richard Lough and Alison Williams)