High level of fraud hits French government energy scheme

Fraud in the government’s flagship energy renovation scheme, MaPrimeRénov’, cost at least €400million in 2023 specialists in the sector say, and they are calling for stricter controls.

The Certificats d'économie d'énergie (CEE) scheme, which enables certain eco-friendly home improvements to be subsidised with aid from energy companies, is believed to be similarly exploited.

“There are cases where it has become a family business,” Simon Le Coz, deputy manager of Objectif EcoEnergie, a consultant specialising in CEE, told The Connexion.

“There have been examples where businesses are registered and deregistered to make tracking hard, multiple applications are made for the same job in a coordinated way, and groups of family and friends are all involved,” he said.

“In addition you have all sorts of tricks on the ground, which range from simply inflating the area covered by the work to doing work which is shoddy and does not meet any of the standards required.”

Mr Le Coz said policing the schemes seems to have fallen between the cracks of the various government departments involved, namely the ecology, housing and finance ministries.

Building cases which prosecutors can take to court has proved complicated.

“Recently it has been decided that the housing ministry should take the lead, which should eventually lead to a more coherent picture,” Mr Le Coz said.

More inter-agency channels have also opened up with, for example, tax and Urssaf offices now able to transfer suspicions about companies or individuals to other government departments.

New prime minister Michel Barnier wants to tackle all types of fraud, including energy renovaiton fraud, as he seeks to cut down on wasteful spending in the coming years.

Read more: Are €1 home insulation offers in France a scam?

Advice on energy renovation projects

Mr Le Coz’s main advice to individuals planning energy renovation projects is for them to use common sense, and try to avoid being taken in by smooth talkers.

“It is your project for your house, and you should always remember that. Stick to basics such as trying to find local businesses with a good reputation, which are often the ones who do not advertise,” he said.

“Selling energy renovation projects by cold calling over the telephone is now illegal in France, so if your phone rings and someone starts talking about getting the loft insulated, you can be sure they are dodgy.”

Where things do go wrong, victims should obviously follow legal procedures to try to recover their money, he said. 

However, he also urged them to inform the bodies which manage certification of tradespeople, such as the Reconnu Garant de l'Environnement (RGE) which artisans need if they work on MaPrimeRénov’ projects.

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RGE certificates

“Although they depend on issuing RGE certificates for much of their funding, they know that it is in their interest to make sure that the certificates are not abused,” Mr Le Coz said.

Objectif EcoEnergie, which among other things has a register of tradespeople for CEE projects, independently checks the first 10 projects carried out by them, in addition to ensuring that at least 2.5% of the projects it handles through the year are checked.

“As a result, the amount of fraud we see is much lower than for some other organisations, and there is no reason why similar work cannot be generalised.”