“Having social security benefits and salaries that are at least at the poverty line is the least we can do,” the association’s spokesperson argued on franceinfo.
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“Having social security benefits and salaries that are at least at the poverty line is the least we can do.”estimates Friday July 12 on franceinfo Manuel Domergue, spokesperson and director of studies of the Abbé Pierre foundation. He reacts to an INSEE study on poverty, according to which 12% of the French population did not heat their homes sufficiently last year, more than one person in 10 deprives themselves of protein at the table, and 13% of the population restricts their leisure activities.
Manuel Domergue believes that to remedy this, we must quickly “to be able to find social solutions to this question of poverty, otherwise people who are stirred up by the extreme right will seek racist solutions.” He considers that the proposal of the New Popular Front to freeze the price of basic necessities “can be quite effective” in the short term, but remains insufficient: “People at the bottom of the ladder still need to have income to pay for what they need.”
“Agreeing to increase social benefits, so that people have something to eat, I think we can do it fairly quickly, it’s necessary”he says.
“Not everything will come down to employment alone: in 2022, the unemployment rate was low. However, poverty was at its highest.”
Manuel Domergue, spokesperson and director of studies at the Abbé Pierre Foundationto franceinfo
The spokesperson for the Abbé-Pierre Foundation therefore recommends “social minimums that are increased, low wages that are increased”He also denounces that personalized housing assistance (APL) has been “cut a lot since 2017”.
Regarding the National Rally’s proposal to lower VAT on energy products, Manuel Domergue criticises a “very bad solution, extremely expensive, extremely polluting, extremely unequal, because those who spend the most energy are the richest.”