To amortize France's past social security debt...

 CADES (Caisse d'Amortissement de la Dette Sociale or Social Security Debt Repayment fund) was established by the government order n° 96-50 dated January, 24th 1996.This legislation was recently amended by Act n° 2004-810 of August 13, 2004, as part of the ongoing reform of France's social insurance system. CADES's existence is therefore inseparable from efforts to balance the accounts of the French social security system.

CADES's mission is to finance and extinguish the debt accumulated by the basic national social security scheme from 1994 to 2006. The total debt include a deficit of 34.2 billion euros for 1994 to 1998, an estimated €35 billion for the years from 2002 to 2004, and €15 billion for 2005 and 2006 .

Moreover, every year until 2005, CADES will be under the obligation to make a 3 billion euros payment to the state budget by way of compensation for the 16.77 billion euros social security liability taken on by the state in 1993.
The Budget bills for the Social Benefits System per fiscal year 2003 and 2004 provide for an exeptional payment of Euro 1.28 billion in 2003 and Euro 1.1 billion in 2004 to various social security funds.

While maintaining a balanced financial structure.

CADES' debt financing relies on its borrowing power on financial markets and on the use of a great variety of financial instruments.

The repayment of these issues is mainly guaranteed by the proceeds of a mandatory levy on citizens' income. This levy is known as the "Contribution to the Repayment of Social Security Debt ("CRDS") . In addition to this main resource, CADES collects the proceeds from the sale of part of the social security system's property portfolio.

* in billion euros