associations call for a revaluation of social minima above inflation next month

The next revaluation of social minima, on April 1, must absolutely be higher than inflation: this is what an association for the fight against poverty pleaded on Monday March 13, calling on the government to “respond immediately” at the“social emergency” driven by rising prices for the most modest. The new poverty reduction strategy, which the government is to present soon, must also include “structural measures” to reduce precariousness, underlined in a press release the Alerte collective, which has 34 federations and associations.

The public authorities must in particular help the most modest to pay their energy bills, generalize the social pricing of school canteens, or even allow asylum seekers to work as soon as they submit their application, pleads this collective. “Already weakened by the health crisis, poor households are bearing the full brunt of inflation. As often, it is in anguished silence that they endure new deprivations”lamented Secours Catholique in another press release.

“Necessarily impossible arbitrations” for the most deprived

With 5 euros per person per day “for all daily expenses”the poorest are faced with “necessarily impossible arbitrations”and have to choose between “to feed, to move or to heat”sums up the Secours Catholique.

The Minister of Solidarity, Jean-Christophe Combe, recently gave details of a program called “Better eating for all”, endowed with 60 million euros, and which aims to help food aid networks to obtain supplies into quality products. But for Secours Catholique, this type of measure is “very far from providing an answer to the millions of households forced to reduce the contents of their shopping cart every week”.