After a busy summer to allow families to go on vacation, the volunteers of the Secours Populaire de Marseille are preparing for the start of the new school year which promises to be busy because of inflation. “There, we are preparing the collections, both in supermarkets, but also with business partners.explains Farida Benchaa, the departmental manager. We take care of 20,000 families in the department, which makes about 56,000 people in all. Each month brings us its share of increases.”
>>Purchasing power: “I earn 1,500 euros and I come to Secours Populaire”, these families “annoyed” by the rise in prices
With a number of beneficiaries that continues to increase, Emmanuel Macron’s comments on the “end of abundance“ and the “end of carelessness” shocked her, she was speechless.
“For us, the action of abundance and recklessness, it has never existed. Whether for families or even for people in charge of Secours populaire or those who organize solidarity.”
Farida Benchaa, departmental manager of Secours Populaire Marseilleat franceinfo
She hammers it: “Seeing is understanding, you have to see to understand”. And insists: “When you have young single moms who are wondering how they will end the month, vYou almost want to put your hand in your pocket. Abundance and recklessness never existed.”
Linda has been a beneficiary and volunteer of the Secours Populaire for about ten years: she takes care of 150 families in the northern districts of Marseille. “They only have one food parcel a month, do you think that’s plenty? she is indignant. Families of seven or eight, with a pack of milk, do you think they’ll keep it for a month?”
“I think it’s inhuman what he’s doing, it means he doesn’t understand anything and he’s incompetent for me. It proves the disconnection with the real world.”
Linda, volunteer at Secours Populaireat franceinfo
According to this 47-year-old Marseillaise, Emmanuel Macron and his government underestimate how precariousness also threatens the middle classes. “For them, it’s always the same categories of people who come, but they’re wrongshe develops. Even people who have houses, they can’t do it anymore. There are young people who are over-indebted, and it’s not because they go to excess! The better it goes, the more they work and the more you have to pay, so they can’t get by.” A life made up of sacrifices which today punctuates the daily life of several million French people.