French MPs Submit A Proposal To Cancel Pensions For Widows Of Polygamous Husbands

The French National Assembly submitted a proposal to the government to cancel the division of the deceased men’s pensions among the heirs, in the case he was polygamous, and the measure, if approved, would include Algeria and several other countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania and countries from West Africa.

The proposal was submitted by 12 representatives in the French National Assembly from the Republic bloc, led by Eric Ciotti and others, within the framework of amendments to the law respecting the principles of the French Republic, dated January 14, which copy was reviewed by Echorouk.

The proposal stated that the government would refer to Parliament, within three months of amending the law, a report on the possibility of renegotiating or rejecting international social security agreements that allow the sharing of the heirs’ pension in case of polygamy.

According to the proposal, Article 15 of the law proposes prohibiting the sharing of the pension of the deceased by the surviving wives, indicating that the international agreements concluded by France with many countries, namely Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia allow the sharing of pensions between widows of the deceased polygamous husbands.

The owners of the proposal said the amendment did not change anything if France did not negotiate international agreements signed with Algeria and the aforementioned countries regarding pensions of deceased polygamous men, because the French parliament, according to them, cannot negotiate or reject an international agreement.

For years, French MPs have raised the issue of sharing the pension of the deceased polygamous husband between his wives, which, according to them, opposes the values of the French Republic, which by law prohibits polygamy, especially with countries that have a large number of polygamous retirees, such as Algeria and the countries of North and West Africa.

A previous report of the French National Assembly (Parliament) revealed in September 2020 that 405,351 Algerian retirees residing homeland are receiving pensions from various French funds, representing more than 100 million euros per month and 1.2 billion euros annually. That is more than DZD 2300 million every year.

The same report claimed that the percentage of fraud in the pensions of Algerians residing on the homeland reaches 50% for adults 85 years and older, and 500 out of 1,000 retired people have never been found, and it confirmed the need to proceed with procedures to verify the lives of retirees through their personal submission to Algerian banks, accompanied by several documents, in light of the complicity, according to the source, of the agents of the Algerian administration in granting life certificates to the elderly benefiting from French pensions.