Grandstand. According to annual data from theInsee for 2022, 12% of the French population is between 15 and 24 years old. Eight million young people with many faces who challenge us to take into account their aspirations, their concerns, their desires, their needs, their anger, their dreams. Eight million young people hit hard by the health, economic and social crisis. Do we need to remember that today, in France, more than one young person in ten is in a situation of poverty?
For two years, this crisis has demonstrated the limits of our social system, since, far from protecting young people, it has greatly increased the disruption of the course. If the many current social measures, whether categorical or sectoral, are essential and necessary, it is clear that they are no longer sufficient and, above all, that they consider young people from a purely social angle when young people themselves ask us to change the paradigm.
Indeed, in view of the changes in our society, in view of the expectations of young people and in a pandemic context that is upsetting relationships and benchmarks, we must imagine new forms of solidarity to give young people hope for the future.
500 euros monthly maximum
This is the ambition that many departments have been pursuing for three years with a proposed law for the experimentation of a basic income worked out in conjunction with the Institute of Public Policy and the Jean Jaurès Foundation.
This is also the whole meaning of the experiment carried out by the departmental council of the Upper Garonnewhich, on its territory, with the scientific support of researchers from the Interdisciplinary Solidarity, Societies and Territories Laboratory (LISST) of the University of Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès and in conjunction with the Unesco-Bernard-Maris Chair of Sciences-Po Toulouse , proposes an experiment involving 1,000 young people aged 18 to 24, representative of young people in the territory and drawn at random, to whom a basic income would be paid, amounting to a maximum of 500 euros per month, decreasing according to the other income, automatic and not conditional on an active search for employment or training.
For three years, the State has refused to adopt an experimentation law allowing the departments to implement this new solidarity on their territory, which could be an innovative response to the situation of young people. This solidarity is in no way assistance or charity. With this basic income, it is not a question of “doing things instead”, but of giving young people the means to do things, of freeing themselves from questions of subsistence, of giving them a little breath to allow them to exercise freedom of choice.
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