Bruno Bernard did not wait until 2022 to take the plunge.
The environmental president of the Metropolis of Lyon will propose to the Metropolitan Council of March 15 a “young RSA”, with first payments from June.
This device will consist of an income of 300 to 400 euros, granted from the age of 18 to 25 years to young adults in great precariousness.
“This segment is the most affected by the effects of the health crisis.
One in five young people live below the poverty line.
If the government does not move on this issue, we have a responsibility to do so, ”Bruno Bernard told Le Monde.
If Emmanuel Macron and the executive, preferring to bet on integration, still refuse to implement such a measure, all on the left are doing the young RSA (inspired by an idea of Benoît Hamon, then socialist presidential candidate of 2017) a major provision of their project.
Temporarily (at least during the crisis) or perennial.
From François Hollande to Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, from the Greens like the MEP Yannick Jadot, probable candidate in the race for the Elysee, the rebels… No less than two socialist bills, rejected by the opposition of right, have been tabled in recent days in the Senate and the National Assembly.
"It's about giving young people the means to take off rather than cutting off their wings", explains Boris Vallaud, PS deputy for Landes.
According to an OpinionWay-Square poll of February 15 for Les Echos, the young RSA is widely welcomed since 68% of those questioned, including 79% of young people, say they are in favor.
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A quasi-plebiscite which did not escape the left determined to launch out to the reconquest of a disenchanted fringe or party "to see" elsewhere.
Because the time is well past when the history of young people and of the left was written in advance so much the values traditionally advocated by the PS, the Communists, the Greens or the rebellious seemed in phase with those of the less than 25 years.
The looming presidential election no longer guarantees these parties the same "bright tomorrow."
“Especially since the health crisis has particularly weakened students and those looking for a first job.
Operation seduction on social networks
Certainly, during the last European and municipal elections, some 6 million young people between the ages of 18 and 25 gave their votes as a priority to the movement of Jean-Luc Mélenchon or to environmentalists.
But these latest polls also show that the most precarious of them now form the bulk of the abstentionist troops and that many have placed their trust in the National Rally.
"Ecology can constitute a renewal for young urban rather privileged, recognizes a socialist elected official of the north of France.
But the anti-system postures of the RN are finding more and more an echo with young people in social suffering.
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VIDEO. Food distribution: "The crisis has doubled the number of beneficiaries" among students
To address those whom politics are finding it increasingly difficult to reach, the left has had to convert to social networks.
The leader of the Insoumis had been the first, in 2017, to surf there.
After Facebook and other Twitter, sites dedicated to video are now favored.
Anne Hidalgo thus gave a long interview to Brut while Jean-Luc Mélenchon did not hesitate to parody on TikTok "Organized Band", the song of a group of Marseille rappers, to make fun of the curfew.
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"Discovering adult life by going to the soup kitchen is unacceptable", warns the First Secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, in front of the lines of students unable to afford a meal.
In the entourage of Anne Hidalgo, we confide that "youth is with the economy, the main subject on which she works.
"We want to act for these future generations and better put them in control," said Julien Bayou, the national secretary of the Greens.
For Arnaud Montebourg, “taking care of this sacrificed generation has become a national imperative.
We need a general mobilization of the State on the subject.
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As for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the only one left already in the countryside, “young people start their life with an obstacle course.
Those of the popular classes are the hardest hit, but they are far from being the only ones concerned.
Autonomy is a right, the State must make it possible!
Can we read in his program.
For the left, in any case, there is no longer any question of "making the youth dream".
“Young people are wary of ideologies and prefer concrete policies, warns an environmentalist mayor.
The political world and the left in particular must learn from this.
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