Grandstand. Our federation of associations committed against poverty – the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS) – was led, in an unusual way, to take a stand on the eve of the second round of the presidential election to help prevent extreme right to exercise power in our country, because it is the very negation of solidarity.
We therefore authorize ourselves, the day after your re-election, Mr. President of the Republic, to say that things must change. Faced with so many obstacles, it is essential to build social trust, a condition for a reinvented solidarity. We are ready for it.
We do not underestimate the difficulty of the task of the re-elected president in a country wounded by long decades of mass unemployment, in a time of social and cultural fragility. Without now counting an open war in Europe.
But the lessons must finally be drawn from what we have just – again – experienced.
Fear of heights
We are ready to commit ourselves to the prospect of full employment that the Head of State has opened up. But it is inseparable from a massive, tangible decline in poverty and precariousness; social and territorial inequalities.
Poverty takes root among young people, among single women with children, among the unemployed at the end of their rights, among retirees, in certain neighborhoods and rural areas. Combined with the precariousness of many employees and self-employed, it accentuates the vertigo of so many French people seized by the fear of tipping over. This results in the temptation to denounce the “assisted” and foreigners.
The democratic health of the country depends on our collective mobilization against precariousness and poverty.
But nothing will be possible without a profound change in method that puts democratic participation at the heart of solidarity policies.
Trust
Centralized, bureaucratic, formatted approaches have only the appearance of efficiency. They too often miss the realities of life. Simply handing them over to the prefects would not change anything.
Solidarity policies must, on the basis of a reinforced national base of rights and resources, start from the people concerned, in their diversity, their needs and their aspirations. It is advisable to deploy the health and social systems around a requirement of continuity according to the paths of the people, to start from the territories on which they live with the actors who accompany them there (State, communities, associations, donors).
You have 59% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.