RSA and solidarity challenges

As of Monday 1^er June 2009, active solidarity income is generalized throughout the territory after a process of experimentation in several departments. If it has not been revolutionized, the system of social minima is nonetheless deeply modified by this emblematic reform with several titles. Even if the RSA proper effect in terms of return to employment is, according to the first assessments of the experiments, limited, the creation of this new device posed a set of questions relating to the organization of solidarity. For almost a year, The life of ideas has endeavored to bring a set of lighting on the challenges of this reform. Two axes structure the contributions gathered in the Reform Social Minima file.

A number of specialists have first raised questions about the new device at the time of its preparation (N. Duvoux ; D. Meda ; J.-L. Outin ; H. Périvier). The High Commissioner wished to provide an answer to their questions and criticisms (M. Hirsch). Then, other contributions made their voices heard and echoed other experiences in time (J. Rodriguez ; N. Delalande) and space (IW Martin ; AD Barbier). Work has also sought to apprehend the system through the categories of sociological analysis (interviews with R. Castel and S. Paugam). The contributions gathered in this file aimed to re -entertain the fully political dimension of this reform by re -situating it in a set of questions opened by research in the social sciences.

Here we will be content to briefly recall in what context these contributions were produced before opening on issues related to the situation or the nature of the debates relating to the fight against poverty today in France.

Exceed a double depoliticization of the fight against poverty

The RSA is first emblematic of the current state of French society in relation to the theme of the fight against poverty, central in the definition of a social pact from the revolutionary era. This reform testifies to a deep suspicion of French society with regard to assistants at the same time as it is accompanied by the definition of ambitious objectives – and for the first time encrypted – of poverty reduction. With the RSA, which deepens the profit -sharing mechanisms of Rmimerges theAPI and the Rmi And reform related rights, the situations of workers are improved. In the process, French society breaks with a republican tradition of response to poverty by promoting a rationalization of modes of action. Julien Damon thus spoke about the RSA of the passage of a “ compassionate social “To a” rational social ». This rationalization remains largely unfinished since the RSA has not merged the three social minimums of integration or the employment premium as was initially envisaged.

In addition, it is accompanied by the reactivation of a moral cleavage between the poor who work and therefore deserve to be helped and the others – those who cannot resume a job – as shown by Hélène Périvier in her contribution on “ The collateral victims of the RSA ». This orientation, like most major trends at work in the RSA, undoubtedly constitutes a deepening of those generated by the Rmi. It clearly brings France closer to Anglo-Saxon countries in the treatment of poverty-which once again places the RSA in the continuity of the Rmi Who was, despite official denials, an assistance system. The comparison is very useful here. Jacques Rodriguez recalls the example of Speenhamland – generalized assistance policy established in 1785 and abolished in 1834 by the New Poor Law – in England at the beginning of XIX^e A century when Isaac W. Martin shows how the American left is, according to him, not to oppose the very punitive reforms implemented in the 1990s in the United States.

The will-and the undeniable capacity-of its main promoter, the High Commissioner for Active Solidarities against Poverty, to make the device accepted beyond the partisan cleavages, also testifies to two convergent trends. On the one hand, there is the empowerment of technical debates relating to the means – public policies – compared to the political debate of overall and on the other hand the advent of a new consensus on the ends (very different from that which had presided over the establishment of the Rmi). In this new consensus, policies are primarily involved in making work paying. The major question that arises is that of the type of job created by this type of device. Before the results of the evaluations of experiments were known, Jean-Luc Outin wondered about the place of the RSA in the architecture of social minima and his role in the structuring of the labor market.

In a way, the question of the fight against poverty has thus experienced double depoliticization. The ends are no longer debated: it is simply necessary to encourage work and to ensure that solidarity stops disinfing individuals – even though, as some work indicate, this postulate is scientifically questionable, despite its political evidence. In addition, the same means apply beyond the partisan cleavages: the RSA was thus supported by the two main French political parties. The political debate can only be exercised in strict limits. It is clear that the debate on the RSA essentially focused on the means allocated to an indisputable measure in its principle (to what height will the RSA be a good RSA ?) And on symbols (the beneficiaries of “ tax shield »Should they be exempt from the tax created to finance the system ?)

Contributions from the file Reform social minima gathered by The life of ideas have sought to go beyond this depoliticization by questioning for example the structural reforms necessary so that the RSA can fulfill its objectives (D. Méda) and the unthought of this reform both from the point of view of its presuppositions and its possible non-souhaité effects (N. DUVOUX ; J.-L. Outin) as well as giving the floor to researchers working in different perspectives and on different contexts, historical or geographic (Jacques Rodriguez ; Isaac Martin ; Jean-Claude Barbier ; THE Rmi in Reunion ; Nicolas Delalande).

Questions for the future

The debate open in the various contributions will obviously do not cease with the generalization of the system. Despite the doubts issued, only the future will be able to answer the central question posed by these contributions: will the RSA lead to the development of a hybrid status made of assistance and precarious work in the long term or will it serve as a lever for sustainable employment for its beneficiaries (J. Fayolle) ? However, beyond this question, the economic situation will radicalize in the coming months the urgency of providing answers to a set of questions relating to poverty and unemployment.

First of all because some signs show that the crisis already has an effect on the most fragile populations. Recall that during the winter of 2008, the attendance of certain charitable associations and the number of deposits of over -indebtedness files experienced two -digit increases. The economic crisis also resulting in regularly (as the evaluation report of experiments shows) the volume of jobs available for RSA beneficiaries, contra-cyclical economic policies likely to avoid the excitement of the number of situations of social distress remain, to a large extent, to invent.

Then, unemployment first strikes a population – young people – which is not covered by social minima (the RSA like the Rmi is only addressed to more than 25 years except in the event of a family load). The need for a political answer to this question which was already arising in the era of Rmi will undoubtedly be dramatized by the arrival on the labor market of the generation of graduates of 2009 in a depressed labor market.

Finally, in the current context marked by the sharp increase in the number of job seekers, the effectiveness of individualized monitoring of beneficiaries of Rmi By the Pôle Emploi services will only be done at the price of political choice and arbitrations which require the fate of the populations covered by the RSA at the center of the public debate and the assignment of the material and human resources of the community.

The dualization of social protection, an obstacle to a real fight against poverty

To hope to be able to answer over time to the question of the development of the poverty of assets and to the difficulty of the measures put in place to remedy it, it is undoubtedly necessary to be beyond the reflection on the parameters of the targeted devices implemented to compensate for the various situations of social vulnerability. Indeed, if the RSA extends many dynamics driven by the Rmiit is because the dualization of our social protection system has been producing its effects since then. Indeed, this dualization reports on the most vulnerable categories-young people and women in particular-most of the requirement of flexibility and this is reflected in the development of a strong precariousness of these populations. The search for efficiency at the same time as social protection equity undoubtedly calls for a more structural and less specific response today. More generally, the dynamics of poverty and inequalities must be understood together, including in countries which, like France, have so far been preserved – relative to other countries – by the development of these phenomena.