An offense of “promotion of fraud” created after the video of a YouTuber boasting of taking advantage of social assistance

An offense of “promoting tax and social fraud” will appear in the 2024 finance bill presented next week to the Council of Ministers, Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave announced on Wednesday. This decision follows in particular the broadcast, widely shared and commented on on YouTube and in the press, of a video where a young man nicknamed “Mertel” claims to receive 1,800 euros net monthly income “without giving a damn” by accumulating various allowances, including a disabled adult's allowance obtained by a certificate of convenience thanks to a doctor he "manipulated".

In a press release, and during a conversation, his lawyer Mr. Hakim Chergui indicated that “this video is in no way the brazen recognition of a social assistance scam but rather proof of the significant psychiatric vulnerabilities known by our client (...) identified by the medical profession in 2005.” According to him, “Mertel” is also currently experiencing family and professional problems, and this whole affair resulted in his hospitalization on Wednesday morning.

The video caused great emotion, especially since “Mertel” appears to be asking Internet users for 300 euros to show them how to imitate her by claiming an “invisible” disability. In passing he scratches “the moronic employees (...) hypocrites (...) who pay my allowances”. These people must be condemned “with the greatest firmness”, said Thomas Cazenave on Sud Radio. Me Chergui, who has known the young man for “years”, assures that he is “neither a fraud nor a scammer”: he “refuses that his provocation and his bravado be emblematized, which he says he regrets , or the object of political exploitation, carried by detractors of all extremes.

Also read: “Fight against social fraud: a vital emergency”

Me Chergui confirmed that his client did indeed receive 1,800 euros per month, but linked, among other things, to a very real disability. On Tuesday, the Minister of Solidarity Aurore Bergé also reacted strongly on disabled).

“Within a few hours this individual was identified. If fraud is proven, legal action will be taken immediately and the aid unduly received will be recovered,” she wrote. The administrative investigation will prove, beyond any possible doubt, that the aid granted to our client is in no way the result of solidarity deception and that their allocation, born from long and complex administrative procedures, regularly monitored and updated by the services of the State, is not undue, assured Me Chergui. According to Aurore Bergé, more than 32 million checks were carried out in 2022, “leading to the detection of 48,692 cases of fraud for an amount of 351.4 million euros”. “Our social model is too precious to be damaged: I will not let anything go,” she concluded on X. The government has already announced that it wants the fight against social and tax fraud to bring in 1.5 billion euros per year by 2027.