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A framework bill on fighting all forms of social exclusion - which includes provisions on job creation - was passed by France's National Assembly in May 1998, with Senate approval planned for July. This article outlines the main changes to the draft legislation since it was passed at cabinet level in March 1998.
A framework bill on combating all forms of social exclusion was presented to the cabinet on 25 March 1998, three weeks after the latter's adoption of a three-year action plan for preventing and combating social exclusion (FR9803100F). The content of the bill was first discussed on 5 May in the National Assembly, and it was passed by 301 votes to 121, on Wednesday 20 May. The bill was to be studied by the Senate in the second fortnight of June, with its passage through that house planned for July 1998.
A decade after the unanimous acceptance of the "occupational integration minimum income" (revenu minimum d'insertion, RMI) scheme, the Alerte ("Alarm!") collective - which groups around 40 of the main associations working in the field of reintegrating people into the labour market and of aid for people in difficulty - called upon members of Parliament to demonstrate their solidarity on the issue of exclusion. This collective, meeting under the aegis of UNIOPSS (Union nationale interfédérale des oeuvres et organismes privés sanitaires et sociaux), feels that the social exclusion bill represents a "big step forward, as for a long time we had been asking for broad-based legislation on this issue, and now it is being brought in." Overall, the associations can see their own ideas reflected in this draft legislation, some of whose articles are based directly on the hands-on experience accrued by voluntary sector organisations.
However, the members of UNIOPSS - including the ATD anti-social exclusion movement, the Salvation Army, Entraide protestante, Médecins du monde and Secours populaire- hoped for a unanimous vote in the National Assembly: "We, and a large section of public opinion, could not understand it if the problems and suffering of so many families, children, young people and adults, who are victims of poverty and social exclusion, did not rally our elected representatives, behind whom the whole country would be mobilised." The parliamentary Right has, it is claimed, remained deaf to this appeal. Associations for unemployed and homeless people were in favour of passing the bill, despite the section dealing with job creation, which they feel is inadequate. Moreover, the associations of unemployed people declared themselves disappointed with the decisions made relating to their involvement in the fund-holding bodies which administer unemployment benefits (FR9805111N).
The bill contains various measures on job creation, housing, debt, health, minimum benefits and education. It takes pride of place in a broader plan estimated to be worth FRF 51 billion over three years, to be supplemented, at the end of 1998, by another plan to introduce universal sickness cover.
For the time being, three principal measures have been passed at the first reading: those on job creation, housing, and debt.
Following a government proposal, a special programme, called Trace (trajectoire d'accès à l'emploi- "career path access to employment") is to be created. Between now and 2000, the plan will provide for individualised monitoring of the reintegration into the labour market of 60,000 young people experiencing serious difficulty. The path towards this reintegration will consist of an 18-month combination of work, placements and training. Those benefiting from the programme will be paid for by the Youth Aid Fund (Fond d'aide aux jeunes, FAJ). This measure has been costed at FRF 5.1 billion over three years.
The "employment solidarity contracts" scheme (Contrats emploi-solidarité, CES), will be retargeted at those most in need (long-term unemployed people, disabled people and young people experiencing difficulty). Five-year "consolidated employment contracts" (Contrats emploi consolidés, CEC) should enable these categories of job-seeker to gain direct access to work, without first going through a CES, as was previously the case. The total number of CEC should reach 200,000 by the year 2000, and the total cost of this measure over three years will be FRF 8.5 billion. Moreover, until 31 December 2000, the "training-for-skills" contracts (contrats de qualification) hitherto reserved for the under-25s will be accessible "on a trial basis" to older jobseekers. There will be 40,000 new entrants into the labour market directly due to this measure, which will cost 2.2 billion FRF. Finally, and within still-to-be-defined limits, it will be possible, in certain cases, to receive minimum social benefits even while the recipient is working.
The housing section, which contains some measures that had already appeared in the previous government's bill on social cohesion, was met with a great degree of consensus between Left and Right in the debates on the issue, a consensus broken only on the question of a tax to be levied on housing left vacant for more than two years. This tax will be applicable from 1 January 1999 in conurbations with a population greater than 200,000. Housing not owned by individuals and left vacant for 18 months, can be requisitioned for a maximum 12-year period. The departmental prefect will appoint the new householders, and rents will be set by decree.
To reduce the number of eviction of tenants, the bill provides for a minimum of two months between the summons and the hearing, to enable the tenant to involve the social services that may be able to afford assistance, and the Housing Solidarity Fund (fond de solidarité au logement, FSL).
A reform in the way that low-rent housing is allocated is one of the important aspects of the bill. The reform is based on an agreement between the state and the organisations that manage low-rent housing to prioritise those people most in need. Moreover, the upper limits on the income of those granted access to low-rent housing will be raised, to produce more "social diversity" within this type of accommodation.
Several amendments were passed regarding the debt section of the bill, sometimes against the government's advice. A minimum amount for subsistence for those in debt is established by reference to the portion of their salaries that can be withheld: a kind of minimum income which cannot be lower than the one received by a household on the RMI.
Debts will be repayable over eight years instead of five, and a three-year moratorium, followed by a system of writing off debts in extreme cases, will be created. The moratorium, and the measures on writing-off of debts laid out in the bill will be extended to tax and social security debts. Moreover, interest rates will not exceed the statutory rate, whatever the length of the repayment programme.
The Senate wants to "improve" the bill on exclusion. It will not be so hostile to this proposal as it was to the bill on the 35-hour working week (FR9806113F), but it hopes nevertheless, to "improve on the government's draft".
France will be the only country to have on its statute book a broad-based piece of legislation encompassing jobs, housing, debt and health. The other European countries favour either measures limited to a narrower field, or local policies, as is the case in southern Europe. The framework bill on exclusion has another distinctive feature, in that it is not based on the idea that assistance should be provided in exchange for some activity, an idea imported from the USA into Europe. (Mouna Viprey, IRES)