Already the acronym, Urssaf (Union for the collection of social security contributions and family allowances), it's scary. But even more frightening (if not laughing…) is the news that comes from the municipality of Locmiquélic, a small town in Brittany, in North-West France, where the Union de Recouvrement des Cotisations de Sécurité Sociale et d'Allocations Familiales – this the original name of the institution – is arrived to ask for a curious payment at the Maman Lapin bistro.
What amazes is not so much the modest sum (9.000 euros) claimed from the owner, Maryka Le Floch, but the motivation: customers carried their glasses back to the counter themselves. A sort of self-service, therefore, which however in French bureaucracy (the whole world is a country...) becomes "covert work". From there the fine, absurd but fortunately not particularly expensive, imposed in flagrante delicto: some agents of the Breton institution in fact went in person to the premises, where they said they saw “people setting and clearing the same table several times in an evening, which is exactly what a paid waiter should do”.
And as evidence of how strict the bureaucracy beyond the Alps is, the affair in 2012 even had criminal consequences: in fact, in November the Le Floch and her husband were even arrested in custody at the disposal of the prosecutor of Lorient, who then rightly let it go. But the civil suit, for covert work, is still pending.
