It will certainly be one of the subjects of the presidential election.
While the government is more than reserved on the principle of a minimum income for young people, the metropolis of Lyon is ahead of the debate by experimenting with the first young RSA in France.
The principle of this Youth Solidarity Income (RSJ) was voted on Monday, with an initial envelope of 10 million euros for the year 2021, and renewed, year after year, "as long as it takes", announces the ecological president of the metropolis of Lyon Bruno Bernard.
"The finding is alarming," he pleads.
22.6% of young people in our territory are below the poverty line according to a survey carried out in the summer of 2020, and this precariousness is growing.
“If a number of youth aid systems already exist, some, among the most precarious, clearly fall through the cracks.
And it is precisely these that the metropolis of Lyon intends to seek.
300 to 400 euros per month for 2000 beneficiaries
"There are many blind spots in national aid systems and at the same time more and more dropouts and more and more young people in the street", notes Bruno Bernard again, presenting his RSJ as "a system relief, a safety net for those who do not benefit from any device ”.
Concretely, the RSJ will be aimed at 18-24 year olds, French or foreigners in a legal situation, resident in the Lyon metropolis and having left education who do not receive any support, neither from their families nor from institutions, i.e. around 2000 estimated beneficiaries. in the Lyon area.
It provides assistance of 400 euros per month for young people without resources for activities, 300 euros for those with less than 400 euros in income as well as progressive support towards training and employment.
This for a period of two years maximum.
"Today we come to fill a gap in the State"
On arriving at the head of France's second largest metropolis last July, environmentalists, allies to the left, asked the government to be able to experiment with a “young RSA”.
The local authority commits to it today without the assistance of the State.
"It is a national issue and I find it shocking that the Minister of Labor opposes insertion and emergency aid," said Bruno Bernard, referring to the forum signed by Elisabeth Borne on February 24 in Le Monde.
“Today we come to fill a gap in the State.
"
While the Minister rejects the idea of a young RSA, wishing to prioritize training, Séverine Hémain, vice-president of the Lyon metropolis in charge of integration, explains how much the public targeted by this RSJ, often young people on the street, is far from employment.
“We can no longer leave young people without an income because, without a minimum of dignity, when we do not know where we are going to sleep and what we are going to eat that same evening, we cannot think about where we are going.
"
In the meantime, the whole difficulty is to identify and locate these young people in great precariousness.
A population clearly visible in the streets, but "invisible" from institutions and which has little chance of spontaneously appearing to benefit from the new Lyon RSJ.
"We count on associations," says Camille Augey, deputy mayor of Lyon in charge of employment.
These young people who never pass through the doors of local missions, it is a question of detecting them by means of marauding.
"