PARIS — France’s Court of Auditors is sounding the alarm over the financial health of the country’s generous social safety net.

In a report published Monday, the country’s highest audit authority said that social spending had spiraled “out of control.” The document also warned that a “liquidity crisis” could impact benefits payments as early as 2027 and affect France’s ability to borrow on financial markets.

France’s social security system registered a €15.3 billion deficit in 2024 and the government is forecasting the program to be €22.1 billion in the red in 2025.

The Court of Auditors, however, said it believed the 2025 deficit is likely to be even greater, as that forecast is based on government projections on growth and savings from tax cuts that the report’s authors deemed optimistic.

“We need to take back control. Over the past years, especially in 2023 and 2024, we have lost control of our public finances,” the court’s president, Pierre Moscovici, said in an interview Monday with radio station RTL.

France’s state budget deficit has ballooned in recent years, reaching 5.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2024 — well over the 3 percent limit set by European Union rules. The French government has pledged to bring the deficit down to 5.4 percent of GDP in 2025 and back to 3 percent of GDP by 2029.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund recommended that France cut social spending and further reform its pension system to rein in its massive deficit.

In their report, the auditors recommended reconsidering targeting cuts to employers’ mandatory contributions to the social security system and limit the use of expensive paramedical staff.