After class, support. Monday, 6 p.m., a dozen primary school students tumble into the premises of the Phoenix association, in the heart of the city of the star, in Bobigny. The schoolbags are filled and the schedule furnished. “You studied, is that good? asks Sadia.
Across from her, a schoolgirl nods, having copied the misspelled words from her dictation. Yousra, Sidi and Mohamed, the three other volunteers, are busy. It works, it laughs, it carries, it also rumbles, sometimes. Here, at the heart of this large complex of several hundred dwellings, around fifty pupils, from CP to 6th grade, benefit from assistance at the rate of three weekly one-hour sessions.
But, three years ago, Phoenix mutated. During confinement, more students. Mohamed, president of the association since 2016, has stored notebooks and pens to organize food distributions. In collaboration with the Restos du Cœur and Emmaüs habitat, the social landlord of the district, the forty-year-old delivered packages to the most deprived, allowing them to cope, for a time, with the health crisis. “At the beginning, it was intended for 10-15 families who were large and whose situation we know is a little delicate. Today, the list must grow to 70 people, ”he explained in our columns in May 2020, during a first report on the spot.
“If tomorrow there is a new confinement, the same people will come back”
The years have passed, but the problems persist. “Today, when I go shopping, I only look at the promotions”, observes Hélène, a resident of the city, who benefited from this one-off aid. Since France was put under cover, the situation of the 28-year-old young woman has evolved. After working as a medico-psychological assistant, she now works as a caregiver, with, as a result, a better salary.
But this mother of three children has to chain vacations to meet the needs of her home: a first day of work in an Ehpad in Drancy, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Then a second job awaits him, until 10 p.m., in a specialized reception center in Pantin. In this context, taking time for her or retraining is not the priority, as for many of her neighbors.
Even more in a department that the Covid has scarred, the mortality rate reaching a peak of 134% between March 1 and April 19, 2020exposing the inequalities in health in a territory where the density of doctors is the lowest in France.
So, rather than at the end of the world, we are already projecting ourselves at the end of the street. “My goal would be to work at the Avicenne hospital, right next door. It would be less tiring for me, the children are next door, and I won’t have to pay Navigo,” she says, hoping that obtaining her nursing assistant diploma in February will help.
“On the list of beneficiaries at the time, some died, some were able to raise their heads, but there were no major changes. If tomorrow there is a new confinement, it will be the same people who will come back, ”predicts Mohamed. Before listing with Hélène the list of food products whose prices have swelled: meat, beans, oil…
“Someone who is used to the hassle, when he has a little more, so much the better. Otherwise, he returns to his galley.
With her pension of 850 euros, Rosemonde cannot contradict them. She also benefited from food parcels, during the Covid. “It is deteriorating, everything is becoming more expensive, we are depriving ourselves”, underlines the 74-year-old retiree, before doing the accounts. “466 euros for rent, electricity, insurance…. After the obligatory deductions, the rest to live on is very meager, and does not allow him to take leisure. “We stay at home, in our corner,” she laments, while Mohamed, her former neighbor, who now sails between Noisy and Romainville, regularly has her groceries delivered.
“Someone who is used to the hassle, when he has a little more, so much the better. Otherwise he goes back to his galley, ”books the associative activist. And, if there have been a few retrainings, they have rather been suffered, notes Marina, the caretaker, always ready to help but always just as “solicited”. “In three years, people have tried to limit the breakage, they haven’t had time to put things into perspective. I don’t have the impression that there was a questioning, ”explains Sidi, a childhood friend of Mohamed and from another district of the city of 55,000 inhabitants.
Retraining, eating better, running, flying less… At l’Etoile, these themes raised at the end of confinement came to nothing. Difficult to be interested in it when other priorities collide. In a neighborhood undergoing urban renewal, the new neighborhood center, located a few dozen meters from the local association, was set on fire. “Apart from the renovation of the buildings, I have the impression that the situation has deteriorated more than anything else”, raises Sadia, between two statements.
“For some people, holidays are a very distant memory”
In 2020, with confinement and the health crisis, Philippe Portmann had to change gear. The secretary general of the Secours populaire de Seine-Saint-Denis federation, which accompanied around 30,000 people in the department, had to deal with 70,000 requests. “Since then, the peak has not really come down,” he notes, as he coordinates the action of 2,000 volunteers and eight employees, who cover 27 of the 40 towns of 93.
Action against the digital divide, food distribution… Against precariousness, the association is struggling, and has also inflated the budget devoted to holidays. “We consider that the people we receive also have the right to holidays, culture and leisure. For some people, the holidays are a very distant memory, “says the president, who has seen new precarious profiles, “especially students and single-parent families with children”, flocking.