Mutuals and Paritarian Institutions, Major Actors in Solidarity for a New Social Contract

The goal of the 9th IPSE Professional Colloquium was to call on members of Parliament and various actors in solidarity-based social protection, exploring their views on the role and place of supplementary social protection based on solidarity. To start the morning off, André Renaudin, CEO of AG2R La Mondiale Group, emphasized that discussion of these topical issues is essential to promoting the specific action of mutual and paritarian institutions. Next, Alain Chenot, President of IPSE, called to mind the features that differentiate these organizations from insurance companies that remunerate their shareholders. He insisted that this differentiation must be based on what they do rather than what they are. Dominique Boucher, Executive Director of IPSE, lamented that social protection, praised in 2008-2009 for its cushioning effects, is now the target of austerity measures throughout Europe. He also expressed his opposition to excessive new taxes on mutuals and paritarian institutions even though they already provide financing for supplementary health insurance.

Philippe Frémeaux, an editorialist at the journal Alternatives Economiques, emphasized that social businesses remained entirely legitimate in the field of social protection. These companies nevertheless face risks of being taken over, becoming trivialized (compared to capital companies), being manipulated (by public authorities) and various challenges in defining and organizing their services.

Legal expert Laurence Lautrette first called to mind the risk of trivialization, but then demonstrated that institutions of solidarity-based social protection are specific due to their long-term vision and the fact that they are founded on solidarity. This value is based on three pillars: issuance of non-contributory rights, social action and prevention. Social action in particular could therefore not be considered a “gimmick”, but truly “supplementary action for supplementary insurance”, which must search out the most remote pockets of need.

During the round table, Bertrand Fragonard, Acting President of the High Family Council, stressed that the state has an interest in creating social and fiscal conditions to promote sustainability of group contracts that ensure supplementary care for workers. Socialist Pascal Terrasse and Centrist Jean-Luc Préel, both Members of French Parliament, rose above their political differences to agree on the importance of the issue of organizing the provision of healthcare. Jean-Luc Préel particularly advocated a “golden rule” for social spending (which Pascal Terrasse approved…but not before 2012!), which would permit the adoption of a balanced social security budget. He also insisted that social partners show more responsibility, particularly in terms of balanced accounts, given the fact that they manage a scheme. Pascal Terrasse, on the other hand, spoke of the need to rethink the objectives of social protection, stressing issues of inequality between generations. Concerning mutual and paritarian insurance providers, he lamented the fact that marketing campaigns damage the positive perception these institutions enjoy thanks to their non-profit status. Marcel Savoye, honorary National Secretary of the Belgian Confederation of Christian Trade Unions, offered his country’s point of view on trends in mutual and paritarian institutions. For financial reasons, these organizations have evolved into tripartite structures, raising questions about the development of a self-sustaining supplementary system.

To close this colloquium, Philippe Frémeaux recalled that the social transformations in our market democracies throughout the last century promoted individual autonomy. Yet for this autonomy to benefit all, it must offer solid collective guarantees so that our society does not sink from “to each his own” to “every man for himself”.

This morning-long debates helped confirm the idea that solidarity founded on the collective interest must remain a key principle of our social protection system, both for basic and supplementary schemes.