HASdo we have a short memory or have we lost all sense of priorities? It is however not so far, this summer of drought at the end of which 62,000 hectares of French forest went up in smoke. This month of May during which we widened our eyes in front of a “job dating” of contract workers in the national education system supposed to make up for the lack of attractiveness of the profession. These months of July and August of concern in the face of emergency closings, load shedding in maternity wards and the further worsening of the public hospital crisis.
But back to school finally arrived and, since we survived, it seems that we have decided to be short-sighted as short-sighted. Hardly had the orientations of the State budget for 2023 been sketched out than an almost unique question evaded the others: when will the inevitable ax of 49.3 fall? As if public debate had to be reduced to parliamentary procedure, and that the budgets voted had no other consequences than occasional polemics or variations in popularity ratings.
We are, however, beginning to know it: the upcoming transitions will require massive investments and profound reorientations in our lifestyles, consumption and production.
These transitions will not take place if they are not organized by public authorities at a much greater speed and scale than those we have experienced in the past. It is time to no longer just “accompany” these transitions when tensions arise, but to think about them in such a way that the economic, social, environmental and democratic dimensions are closely intertwined.
The cost of inflation barely covered
It is by this yardstick that the 2023 state budget should be judged.
This budget will have a short-term impact on the lives of the population: if, as planned by the government, twenty thousand emergency accommodation places are closed compared to 2022; if the number of beneficiaries of school grants decreases to “compensate” their indexation to inflation; or if the appropriations dedicated to subsidized jobs for people furthest from employment are reduced by 65 million euros.
It will have an impact if the funds allocated to MaPrimeRénov’ for the thermal renovation of buildings – to which the Defender of Rights recently denounced extremely complex access – increase less quickly than inflation, even though the studies show that the rate of annual renovations should be doubled. It will have an impact if the index point were again frozen in a period of inflation, just as would be the allocations to the communities which carry school catering, social services, or public transport.
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