This health crisis for young people is a tough test ... An Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey for Le Figaro, France Info and France Bleu conducted among 15-30 year-olds (*) confirms that they "
do not see the end of the tunnel
Of the Covid crisis.
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Since the beginning of November, 70% of high schools have switched to “hydride” teaching, with the risk of dropping out now proven.
As for the students, they only returned to college very briefly, before spending the end of October completely at a distance.
The government now gives them an appointment on January 25, providing for a restricted re-entry: only for first-year students, only in tutorials (TD) and in half-groups.
Nothing to reassure them ...
Social life at a standstill, difficult studies, uncertain professional integration ... Today, eight out of ten students are afraid of encountering difficulties in completing their studies, i.e. +10 points in two months, according to this survey published on the 19th January.
For more than 70% of them, distance education risks devaluing their diploma.
Overwhelmingly, they disapprove of the closure of universities and demand relaxation, oscillating between concern, irony and incomprehension.
"
Why don't you just let us go back to class?"
Children at school, yes.
Students, responsible and aware of the barrier gestures to respect, no!
It's to go crazy!
», Summarizes one of them.
“
Visios are just no longer possible: always the same scenes, always the same moments of solitude when you want to talk…”,
describes another.
“
Phew!
We finally have a psycho support number!
With that I will fill my fridge and find an internship!
What a relief!
», Quips yet another.
Significant damage
The majority of 15-30 year olds feel like a “
sacrificed generation
”.
They express their feeling of "
missing out on their best years
" and fear a lot for their future.
In this age group, 80% say they have suffered "
significant damage
" related to the pandemic, in terms of their studies, their employment or their emotional life.
Half of them have seen their purchasing power drop.
One in five young people say they have lost their home or experienced great difficulty in financing it.
The health crisis deteriorated relationships with their friends (43%), their family (29%) and had an impact on their love life (23%).
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They are also more than a third to have consulted for psychological reasons since the start of the Covid crisis or plan to do so.
A proportion that joins the converging data according to which 30% of students suffer from anxiety and depressive disorders.
With overwhelmed university psychological health services - the Minister of Higher Education has announced the recruitment of 80 psychologists, which would increase their capacity to 1 professional for 15,000 students - and liberal consultations which are equally so, the question of the mental health of young people is making a lasting impression on the landscape.
The 15-30 year olds say, at 31%, that their addictions have worsened, starting with tobacco, followed by alcohol, medication and drugs.
One in three young people admit to breaking the rules
In such a context, young people admit having already violated the rules of curfew or confinement.
One in three admits such a transgression, by "
going out to friends or inviting them outside of legal hours
" (34%), by "
meeting together to have parties, such as on
December
31
" (32%). ) or even by "
traveling outside the scheduled hours without having any real justification for doing so
" (30%).
On each of these "deviations" from the rules in force, the transgressions of young people are ten to a dozen points above those of the general population, committed on average by one in five French people.
"We
will have to hold on,
" President Macron wrote on Friday to a student who, in an open letter to the head of state, confided her anxieties and anger.
"
For the moment, it is fear that makes youth '' hold on '' as best they can
," concludes the Odoxa survey.
(*) 1,356 French people surveyed, including 539 young people (15-30 years old), by internet, on January 18 and 19, 2021.