What’s in the budget?
On 1 October 2026, the French government presented its draft budget for 2027, the Projet de Loi de Finances (PLF 2027). The Lecornu government has attached a fiscal effort of roughly €54 billion to it, aimed at reducing the budget deficit. Notably, within that tight budget, funding for occupational health and safety is still rising, reports the French trade outlet actuEL-HSE.
That funding typically runs through the budget programme of the French Ministry of Labour dedicated to the quality of work and labour relations. It covers, among other things, the implementation of the national action plan for workplace safety and the subsidy to the Agence nationale pour l’amélioration des conditions de travail (Anact), the French public body that mainly supports small and medium-sized enterprises on prevention. Publicly available reporting does not give an exact total for 2027; according to actuEL-HSE, this budget line is escaping the general austerity trend.
What does this mean in practice?
For employers and OHS professionals operating in France, this points above all to continuity: the government budget for prevention and workplace safety does not appear to be shrinking, at a time when other policy areas do have to make cuts. How exactly the additional funds will be allocated should become clear as the budget process continues.
That increase, however, contrasts with another French budget debate running in parallel. For 2027, the government wants to save around €800 million from the branch of social security that compensates workplace accidents and occupational diseases, the so-called branche accidents du travail-maladies professionnelles (AT-MP). According to the ministry, without intervention that branch expects a deficit of €1.5 billion in 2027. So while the prevention budget is growing, the benefits side is under pressure, in a country where 764 fatal workplace accidents were recorded in the general employee scheme in 2024. According to the French health insurance fund, that was the fourth consecutive year in which safety indicators worsened.
Context
A national budget for occupational safety and health is not a uniquely French phenomenon: almost every country sets aside a separate budget line in its national budget for a labour inspectorate, public prevention bodies and research into occupational risks. The size and stability of that budget line directly determines how many workplace visits and inspections a labour inspectorate can carry out, and how much free support smaller companies – often those without their own HSE department – receive. For OHS professionals worldwide, that kind of budget choice is therefore a useful indicator of the priority a government gives to enforcement and prevention. Within the European Union, the EU strategic framework on health and safety at work 2021-2027 likewise stresses the importance of well-equipped labour inspectorates, with the aim of further reducing the number of fatal workplace accidents.
Source: PLF 2027: despite savings, funding for health and safety at work is rising, actuEL-HSE, 5 October 2026
Also researched: Echos Plus and Journal du Net, on the planned savings on the French AT-MP branch of social security (July 2026); 2024 annual figures from the French health insurance fund (Assurance Maladie – Risques professionnels).
