Lyes Louffok is a child rights activist.
While Emmanuel Macron promised in 2022, at the conclusion of the debate in the second round of the presidential election, that “
child protection will be at the heart of the next five years
”, no full-fledged ministry has been announced during the last reshuffle.
Even more serious, the State Secretariat for Children risks disappearing in favor of the appointment of a simple interministerial delegate while situations which illustrate structural dysfunctions accumulate.
Children mistreated in their families, children placed in squalid hotels or campsites, cases of prostitution of children from Child Welfare, staggering in number, and more and more surviving children in our streets.
The diagnosis is the same everywhere: insufficient controls, poor resources, until it is too late.
However, no major action has been taken seriously on the subject.
Childhood is not a cause like any other, it defines a civilized society.
It defines our threshold of tolerance to justify the social pact, to decide that the strong do not dominate the weak.
And the weak are the children.
The responsibility of the State is to ensure that they can grow up in a healthy and protective environment.
In France, the political representation of childhood has already experienced deterioration since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. While it was provided by a full ministry under François Hollande, this was abolished in 2017 , then restored to the simple rank of state secretariat in 2019 under pressure from associations.
This decline is all the more worrying as the years that followed were marked by a succession of tragedies and scandals which highlighted the failures of the child protection system in France.
In 2019, Jess, 17, was killed by another child placed in a social hotel in Hauts-de-Seine lacking professional supervision.
In 2021, 17-year-old Anthony was found dead, naked, in a field.
Due to lack of space, he was placed in a campsite by the Saône-et-Loire Child Welfare Department.
At a time when Gabriel Attal's government is being formed, the abolition of the State Secretariat for Children would mean that the public authorities are giving up on specifically taking care of the needs of children.
Lyes Louffok
These two tragic deaths revealed the negligence of the authorities responsible for protecting children.
Tens of thousands of protection measures ordered by the courts have still not been implemented.
Homes are overcrowded and child protection professionals are often understaffed and overworked.
How can we accept, in 2024, in France, that a child dies every five days at the hands of their parents?
How can we forget the ordeal suffered by little Lisa, 3 years old, beaten to death by her parents in Eure or that of Samy, killed in the same circumstances by her mother and stepfather?
What can we say about a society in which a child can have been abandoned for two years, living alone, without electricity, without either the school or the neighbors noticing?
Added to this is the dramatic situation of increasingly numerous homeless children.
Every night in France, among the 330,000 homeless people, nearly 3,000 children sleep in our streets;
there are 700 children under 3 years old.
This situation should alarm us.
It imposes urgent reforms to guarantee all children, without distinction, the right to a protective and caring environment.
At a time when Gabriel Attal's government is being formed, the abolition of the State Secretariat for Children would mean that the public authorities are giving up on specifically taking care of the needs of children.
Does “demographic rearmament” not also consist of giving a chance to these 380,000 children under the responsibility of the Republic?
Don't they have the right to have the same opportunities as other children?
Lyes Louffok
Early exposure to violence has been recognized by the international scientific community and the World Health Organization as a major public health problem, being the leading cause of early mortality and morbidity in adulthood.
It is essential that child protection policies appear around the table of the Council of Ministers.
The French administrations in charge of children are running out of steam.
Foster families are aging, childcare professionals are suffering, territorial disparities linked to decentralization are widening.
Today there are 380,000 children in care in France, a constant increase over the past 20 years.
Many others are the subject of reports and the unprecedented threshold of 400,000 child protection measures will be crossed this year.
Are we going to abandon them?
Does “demographic rearmament” not also consist of giving a chance to these 380,000 children under the responsibility of the Republic?
Don't they have the right to have the same opportunities as other children?
Should we still accept that 40% of homeless young people under 25 are former foster children?
Should we accept that 70% of foster children do not obtain any diploma?
Through our inaction, we are systematically creating the misery, delinquency, and insecurity of tomorrow.
More than ever and in the face of these many challenges, let us provide a ministry that will allow professionals to reverse this trend for children.