“Working only to fill up with diesel is not possible”: Sylvie Rossignol, 56, home help in rural areas, is bearing the full brunt of soaring petrol prices, very painful for modest salaries.
Her personal car is her “working tool”: every day, she travels a hundred kilometers in the Auvergne countryside aboard her red Dacia to visit elderly or sick people, sometimes very dependent, often isolated.
Since the rise in the price of fuel, “the shortfall is enormous. We don’t earn our living, it’s survival! Not to mention winter snow tires, oil change, insurance, wear and tear. .. Everything is for our apple!”, she says, cheekily.
Her tour of the day takes her to an isolated farm, at the end of a small country road, in Bromont-Lamothe (Puy-de-Dôme) with Andrée, 85 years old.
The retired farmer refuses to take her medication: “Dédé, the pills, you have to take them, otherwise you will be sick”, tries Sylvie, mixing gentleness and firmness.
“Let’s go, I’m taking you to your room. We’re both going, we’re going to put on the nightgown”, patiently enumerates the dynamic fifty-something, while helping the old lady to get up.
“I like people… You know, when we arrive and they say to us: + You are our ray of sunshine +, it’s nice” she says between two trips, with her jovial air and her eyes laughing.
With a full tank now around 100 euros, Sylvie never waits for her tank to be empty to “avoid paying too much at once”.
She plans to cut back on food expenses: “because with the other bills, we have no choice!” she says. Only half of his journeys are reimbursed to him, at 0.37 euros per kilometer, because only the distance between each beneficiary is calculated.
– 600 km for 38 hours of work-
“Why not tax-free fuel for people like her? Already they are not paid much…”, estimates Jean-Paul Duval, 71, who receives Sylvie a few hours a week.
“She helps us on a daily basis with the tasks that we cannot do ourselves due to health problems and we are very happy to find someone who comes to our home, especially in the countryside!” he.
Sylvie Rossignol benefits from a contract of 130 hours per month, paid at minimum wage, a “privilege” according to her. Because most of his colleagues work part-time, with much lower incomes, while the profession is struggling to recruit.
Valérie Chassin, 53, works for Natise, a private home cleaning company located in Volvic (Puy-de-Dôme). In February, she traveled more than 600 km for 38 hours of intervention, and a salary of 494.76 euros … including mileage allowances, as specified in her pay slip consulted by AFP.
“It makes me want to cry”, testifies the one who plans to stop her activity: “at 22 cents the mileage allowance, with the rise in fuel prices, I will not be able to fill my tank for a long time”.
But unlike Sylvie Rossignol, her journeys are remunerated from home, from the first beneficiary.
The rise in prices “necessarily impacts our employees, but it is the State which sets the scale of services. This does not allow us to increase our prices and pass on an increase in mileage allowances”, replies Elise Lespinasse, director of Natise, ensuring that steps are taken at departmental and national level to “get a boost”.
Without waiting, Apamar, an association which employs Sylvie Rossignol and works mainly in rural areas, decided to increase the mileage allowance by three cents for three months.
For Dominique Bernier, director of the service offer, “the profession suffers from a lack of recognition, while the actions of these employees are essential. It’s a bit of a world of silence. They get into the car, do their rounds with a smile, then go home, quietly”.