Patrice Ract Madoux
Président de la CADES

In the course of the first half of 2008, CADES once again successfully carried out the mission that the French government entrusted to it, that of paying down the French social security debt.

On June 30, 2008, out of the 107.6 billion euros of this debt that had been assumed since 1996,
35.8 billion euros had already been amortized and another 71.8 billion euros remained to be

amortized.

The Draft Finance Act for Social Security that was submitted to Parliament last October calls for the transfer to CADES of 26.6 billion euros in new debt from the basic social security system and from the Old Age Solidarity Fund (Fonds de Solidarité Vieillesse or FSV). In return, CADES will receive additional resources that will enable it to amortize this new debt without extending the life of the agency according to the law passed on August 2, 2005.

A new debt issue program for 2009 that takes this newly assumed debt into account will be announced in January during our annual conference.

Against the current backdrop of substantial instability in the world’s capital markets, the transparency that CADES has always strived for remains a source

of reassurance for investors. These strengths allow us, more than ever, to be confident in our ability to pursue the objectives that have been assigned to us, i.e. to amortize all of the social security debt we have assumed.