Le Cleiss Particuliers Employeurs Indépendants Documentation Actu

Since 1959, a help-desk in France for international mobility and social security: the CLEISS (Centre of European and International Liaisons for Social Security

Facilitating International Mobility

To facilitate the ever-increasing movement of people between countries, France and Europe have an international legal framework which ensures efficient coordination of national social security systems for persons moving outside national boundaries. The framework comprises European Regulations No 1408/71 and No 574/72, the new Regulations No 883/2004 and No 987/2009 and 35 bilateral agreements signed by France and most of the main non-European partners in the Mediterranean Basin, Maghreb, French-speaking Africa, America and the Far East, as well as four Coordination Decrees with New Caledonia, Mayotte, French Polynesia and Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.

For persons living or residing outside the country which habitually provides their social security cover, these legislative texts enable: the exemption from residence conditions and waiting period requirements for those entitled to benefits; the totalization of acquired rights taking into consideration all working periods performed in the States concerned when retirement or survivor’s pension is to be paid; the exportation of pensions; and, as required and under certain conditions, the continuing applicability of the sending country’s labour laws for those posted to the territory of another contracting State.

A wide range of persons from the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the French overseas territories benefit from these rights: students, working and non-working persons and dependants, who reap the benefit of better protection than that which is generally provided for in bilateral agreements (which usually concern only citizens from the States concerned who are working or have worked in those States).

Facilitating Social Security

The Cleiss is the French hub organisation involved in implementing these agreements on behalf of public authorities and social security organisations, with respect to all risks and social security schemes. Thus:

• it provides the French Government with its expertise for the negotiation and implementation of international agreements and European regulations on social security and helps make such legislation accessible to individuals and companies.
• It is the relevant body for the examination of all exemption agreements or exceptional agreements for workers posted abroad.
• It acts as an intermediary between French and foreign social security institutions and between those institutions and individuals and companies, providing administrative assistance to resolve financial or legal problems.
• It provides these institutions help with recovery and settlement of claims and debts related to health care expenses, bringing in some €150 million to €250 million each year to France’s public and social security coffers.
• It meets the translation needs of French social security institutions; in this respect it is France’s premier public translator, 50,000 pages a year being translated on average from 26 languages.
• It issues an annual statistical report showing human and financial flows between States in the context of international social security coordination.

The Cleiss (Centre of European and International Liaisons for Social Security) acts as a liaison body between the French social security institutions and their foreign counterparts by implementing Community Regulations and bilateral or multilateral social security agreements. It is a French public institution, funded chiefly by the French social security schemes. It has a unique position within the French social security system owing to its international role.

Three types of mission

A financial and administrative role

The Cleiss checks and pays claims and debts relating to health care costs incurred by families residing in a country other than the country where the worker is employed. It also deals with healthcare costs incurred by insured persons moving or on a temporary stay abroad, as well as healthcare costs incurred by pensioners (and their families) who have moved to another country. Payments are made on actual-cost or lump-sum basis, depending on the provisions of the agreement concerned.

The Cleiss collects from the French social security institutions the statistical and financial data relating to the transfer of benefits abroad in accordance with international agreements, and produces an annual statistical report on this basis. This financial and statistical data is also used for the final settlement of accounts between the French and foreign social security schemes; these settlements are reached by joint bilateral committees, supervised by the competent authorities of the States involved.

An advisory role

The Cleiss assists French social security organisations in implementing European regulations and bilateral agreements related to the coordination of social security systems. It intervenes at the request of French and foreign organisations and also of insured persons or their employers; it supplies information relating to the procedures provided under different international agreements and the interpretation of laws or other legal texts issued by its supervisory authorities. It processes requests for exemption from French coverage or, in exceptional cases, continued coverage under the French system.

Its role as a coordinator between the institutions and the ministry with responsibility for social security - within which its main partner is the Division of European and International Affairs of the Social Security Directorate – confers on the Cleiss a unique position within the French social security system.

Thanks to documentation on foreign social security laws, the Cleiss provides information to the French funds, employers and insured persons about the schemes of countries linked to France by social security agreements. Conversely, it informs foreign institutions about French social security law and changes in French legislation.

A translation role

The Cleiss is the translation body for the French social security funds; it carries out, at their request, translation into French of correspondence and the legal, medical and administrative documents needed to process claims and application.