Elisabeth Borne in the middle of huge pallets of food in a hangar, in Reims (Marne) to present Thursday, November 3 a “fund for sustainable food aid of 60 million euros in 2023The Prime Minister made the announcement in a food bank, where more and more people are rushing in the face of rising prices. Age, social origin, number, franceinfo paints a portrait of the beneficiaries.
Food insecurity: “We are far from the mark, we can quantify the needs for 2023 at 200 million euros, according to the French Secours populaire
If the head of government mentioned the figure of two million beneficiaries in France, INSEE counted up to four million at the beginning of last summer. According to the Abbé Pierre association, the use of food banks is up 12% compared to 2021. Half of the people who use food aid are aged 25 to 49 and 44% of these people are immigrants.
With regard to the gender of the beneficiaries, this differs according to the needs and the services offered by the food banks. There are three main categories: food parcels or baskets, social groceries and the distribution of meals, as in “Les Restos du Coeur“. Those who come to pick up packages, or who go to grocery stores, are 72% women, who raise often alone their children.
On the other hand, those who come to have a meal are three quarters of men, the vast majority of immigrants and they are rather young. In terms of attendance rate, 40% of beneficiaries go to a food bank once or twice a week to take advantage of parcels and groceries. For meal distributions, 40% of people use it every day.
The majority of beneficiaries are people who already receive other state social assistance. Compared to the average household, there are twice as many people who receive housing allowances, four times as many people who receive the Active Solidarity Income (RSA) and these are people who receive income three times less often. activity than average. In 42% of cases, it is people who give up medical care because the price is too high.
It is therefore categories of the population that accumulate the difficulties. Recently, some students, mostly foreigners, need food aid. This is a recent phenomenon, as around 80% of students benefiting from this aid have only used it since March 2020, with the onset of the Covid-19 crisis.