The government presents a plan to combat poverty deemed insufficient by associations

2023-09-19 09:18:45
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne during the presentation of the solidarity pact, at Matignon, in Paris, September 18, 2023. EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP

“It’s a cold shower”, reacted Noam Leandri, the president of the Alerte collective, which brings together thirty-four associations fighting against poverty, at the end of the meeting organized by the government. The collective hoped “a revaluation of social minimums, which have fallen due to inflation and led to a loss of purchasing power for the most modest. But the Prime Minister closed this door.”

After eight months of successive postponements, the government unveiled, Monday September 18, its solidarity pact, eagerly awaited in the current context of sharp increases in consumer prices, which is hitting the poorest hardest, as evidenced by the flows requests from food aid associations.

Part of the associative world welcomed some progress. First of all, this new plan “marks a 50% increase in credits dedicated to the fight against poverty compared to the previous strategy”, promised Elisabeth Borne, without committing to an amount. The previous plan, launched in 2018, was initially allocated 8 billion euros over four years.

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Maintaining the existing 203,000 emergency accommodation places is also a relief. “Currently, places are closing almost everywhere, and this decline will therefore be stoppedexplains the president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors, Pascal Brice. Obviously, that won’t be enough, but I’m taking the matches one after the other. »

Mr. Brice also welcomes the awareness of the difficulties of recruiting social workers. The new Minister of Solidarity, Aurore Bergé, wishes for example to set up a national school of social work, “to help recreate vocations”. “It’s important because we can always consider hundreds of measures against poverty, if there are no social workers behind it, it won’t do it”warns Pascal Brice.

Four main axes

To build its pact, the government has set four main areas of work: the prevention of poverty from childhood, the return to employment, the fight against great exclusion, the inclusive ecological transition. These objectives are broken down into some twenty-five concrete measures, ranging from the continued deployment of school breakfasts, particularly overseas, or 1 euro canteens to combat child malnutrition, to the Colo Pass already announced, and the multiplication of crèches aimed at professional integration, to encourage the return to employment of parents. For single-parent families, there is also an extension of assistance for individual childcare until they enter college. Or, from 2025, the payment of a return to employment bonus “for all costs incurred by returning to work”particularly in terms of mobility or clothing.

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