THEThe laborious delivery of the youth engagement contract, announced Tuesday, November 2 by Emmanuel Macron and then detailed by his prime minister, largely explains the low enthusiasm his announcement aroused. For three months, Bercy battled to reduce the scope of the device which aims to allocate an allowance of up to 500 euros per month to under 26 years seeking to enter the labor market. The potential audience was evaluated at 1 million beneficiaries, but Bruno Le Maire led a crusade to reduce it by citing the cost of the device (several billion euros) and the risk of seeing a young RSA prosper in France without any real compensation in terms of employment.
The Minister of the Economy was finally heard beyond his expectations. The tonnage fell between 400,000 and 500,000 young people, the cost was reduced to 550 million euros. The semantics itself has evolved: while, on July 12, the President of the Republic had mentioned the creation of a “Commitment income”, the new device has been renamed ” employment contract “, in order to highlight the balance between right and duty, the perception of an allowance on the one hand, the realization of an integration process on the other. No question of accrediting the idea that the government would encourage assistantship, at a time when many companies, in full overheating, complain of not finding the workforce they need.
Badly born, the new contract is no less interesting, precisely because it concentrates financial and human resources on the public in greatest difficulty, those who have been unsuccessful for months, if not years. He developed the idea of ”tailor-made”, by insisting on the mobilization of all actors: companies, associations, local missions but also Pôle emploi, called, for the first time, to recruit advisers specially trained in support for these young dropouts. Fifteen to twenty hours of training or support will be provided to them each week for a year, with the hope of getting them back on track.
The improved youth guarantee
The state does not start from nothing. It is strong to improve the youth guarantee, launched under the five-year term of François Hollande, which allows half of the beneficiaries to find a job six months after leaving the device. In doing so, it only corrects a posteriori one of the great weaknesses of the French school system, which lets slip each year, without diploma or qualification, some 95,000 young people doomed to the greatest difficulties of integration. Their number may decrease, but it remains shockingly high.
The disappointment that prevailed with the announcement of the youth engagement contract shows that the government is far from having exhausted the subject of youth. Of course, apprenticeship has boomed during the five-year term, and the extension of the “1 young person, 1 solution” plan, launched in July 2020, is helping to improve their integration possibilities. But the precariousness of which they continue to be victims increases the risk of generational breakdown in an aging country.
Emmanuel Macron had felt it on leaving confinement. He then called to build “A new pact between the generations”, by also insisting on the need for better care for the elderly. These two projects unfortunately remain fallow, in particular because the question of financing has still not been clearly posed, nor clearly debated. Hopefully the presidential campaign will give the opportunity to do so.