Dn the program he presented for his re-election, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, wanted recipients of the active solidarity income (RSA) to have an obligation to “fifteen or twenty hours of activity”. He compared this reform to the “youth contract”, launched just before the electoral sequence, supposed to compensate for the refusal to extend the RSA to those under 25 years old. These fifteen or twenty hours would constitute, according to the president, a “activity that allows insertion”.
The promise is actually aimed at two types of people. The first are right-wing voters. The project is close to that of Valérie Pécresse and local authorities such as Haut-Rhin, where the “compulsory volunteering” was finally validated by the Council of State and the Nancy Court of Appeal in 2020. The purpose of the announcement is obviously to seduce new voters with a message of ” rigor “. The other people targeted are… the poor, current and future RSA recipients. Several surveys (including interviews conducted by me) have shown that they received this announcement with apprehension.
In their everyday life, they already experience what sociologists call “barriers to employment” – very often, childcare and transport are not available. But above all, they feel, more deeply, a questioning of their efforts. The president places his proposal in the category of “strengthened rights and duties”. This is a debate as old as the first implementation of the minimum integration income (RMI) in France, in 1988.
In 2014, Jean-Michel Belorgey, PS deputy and co-author of the law on the RMI, underlined the French originality by comparison with the orientation “punitive” British and American social provisions: a second right was introduced in France which accompanied the allowance. It was the right to integration, which is now more often called the right to support, marking the specificity of French policies – a particularity in the process of disappearing, like what the president of the Republic for social protection in general.
“survival income”
The National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion (CNLE) nevertheless expressed the wish, on 28 February, that this support is universally accessible, at the request of candidates for integration. However, it is not yet, as the report of the Court of Auditors in January confirmed with brilliance: the RSA is underfunded to the tune of 40% of expenditure; funding for integration and support for local authorities has continued to decline since 2009. Candidates for integration are fully aware of these logics. Hence the fears of recipients!
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