In mid-July, Emmanuel Macron called on the French armies to “do more” to develop the Universal National Service (SNU), a presidential campaign promise. Because for the moment, this service does not seem to attract many people. “You are not mistaken”, retorts the Secretary of State in charge of Youth and Universal National Service (SNU), Sarah El Haïry, guest of Europe 1, this Tuesday morning.
“There are more young people applying for the SNU than places available,” she said. “We started the experiment in 2019, there were 2,000 young people. In 2021, there were 15,000 young people. This year, we have 40,000 young people. There are more volunteers than open places.” The 2020 session had been canceled due to the health crisis.
A tool for young people?
“We must organize the quality of the supervision, the quality of the reception, but above all to seek this moral force in our youth, that of working together, of raising a flag, of bringing to life the taste of pride”, a she added.
Can this service be a tool for these young people? For Sarah El Haïry, the mission of this service is “to increase the resilience, the learning of our youth”. “They learn the gestures that save, they learn to react in the event of a fire, a natural disaster, an accident on a highway”, she lists.
“Universal National Service erases inequalities”
But the UNS is far from unanimous. At the beginning of 2022, the National Education came up against a difficulty in recruiting qualified personnel to support these young participants. “When we say, ‘we must invest in our youth, it’s our treasure’, of course it’s our treasure, except that it involves the ability to give them the means to be an actor in their life and to our country,” said the Secretary of State.
“To be an actor, you need a framework, you need benchmarks. The National Universal Service erases these inequalities because it provides information. It fights against non-use, but above all, it gives this very French taste of say to yourself ‘what can I do to fully take my life and my destiny’, that’s called emancipation”, she concluded.