It could be the story of two ships adrift. On one side, that of early childhood and on the other, old age, passed from the command of the State and local authorities to that, not always well-intentioned, of the lucrative private sector. In The Ogres (Flammarion), published Wednesday September 18, and The Gravediggersreleased two and a half years earlier, the journalist Victor Castanet reveals the excesses of the early childhood and old age business and describes the methods of unscrupulous entrepreneurs taking advantage of public subsidies to enrich themselves personally, to the detriment of the babies and elderly people in their care.
Financial schemes, the search for profit at all costs, deplorable working conditions, rationed diapers and food… These schemes, common to the giants Orpéa and People & Baby, call into question the ability of private structures to welcome and care for the most vulnerable. What do these scandals say about our society? To answer this question, franceinfo spoke with sociologist Daniel Verba, lecturer at the Sorbonne and specialist in early childhood.
franceinfo: Victor Castanet has published a book on the abuses that exist in the early childhood sector, with a search for profit that has led to the mistreatment of infants. Are you surprised?
Daniel Verba: No, these revelations do not surprise me and are, it seems to me, salutary. For years, with my sociologist colleagues, we have been warning about the excesses of the private profit sector, particularly concerning daycare centers. A few months ago, I even wrote a column in the newspaper The World to reaffirm that neither early childhood nor care for the elderly are products or commodities that can be financially valued and entrusted to boards of directors who only seek short-term profit, to the detriment of the service to be provided.
The revelations made by Victor Castanet also show that researchers are not taken seriously. That only media noise allows one to be heard. Assuming that politicians follow up on these scandals, which is not at all certain in this period of budgetary tension.
New Prime Minister Michel Barnier said on Wednesday that France’s budgetary situation was “very serious”suggesting further budget cuts. In such a context, can we really do without the profitable private sector?
This is a formidable question. In fact, there are three types of solutions: political, economic and administrative. Regarding the political, we should return to the old public service system that gave satisfaction at the time of the construction of the welfare state, in the aftermath of the war. The solutions can also be administrative, with more controls on these structures, whether they are associative or private. When we give discharge to an establishment, we must be able to exercise quality control over it. All the more so if it receives subsidies. However, we see that the State and local authorities do not do this monitoring work. Finally, from an economic point of view, we should review all the priorities of public budgets. But it is not simple.
Victor Castanet denounces the “immense responsibility” of the State and local authorities, which, for reasons of economy, delegate their public services to the private sector, without ensuring that the service provided is up to par. How can we explain such complacency on the part of the public authorities? ?
For public authorities, delegating these missions allows them to get rid of a very heavy burden on their finances at a lower cost. Departments already devote half of their budget, sometimes even more, to financing social services. However, the State has significantly withdrawn from this sector in recent years and public budgets are stretched to the bone. Added to this, citizens are subject to the pressure of the lack of reception facilities for babies or dependent elderly people.
The private, for-profit sector is rushing into this shortage and offering to meet a vital need that it is transforming into a business. Parents, forced to enroll their child in these structures, thus become clients trapped in this system. Which pushes them, once they have found a solution to this need, not to be too careful about the quality of the service provided and leads them to very uncomfortable situations when they become aware of mistreatment.
What do these two works reveal about our society and the way it views dependent people?
It is almost a moral failing. Knowing the early childhood sector a little better than that of dependent elderly people, I would say that taking care of babies properly is a bet on the future. The better we take care of our young children, the better we prepare the future of our society. A well-conducted early childhood policy is a contribution to the prevention of many social and emotional risks, such as academic failure, sexual violence, power relations, radicalism… We only need to examine the trajectories of adolescents who end up in child protection or in prison. In their trajectory, many have lacked a family framework, but also a caring institutional framework.
To ensure this framework, well-trained, competent and properly paid professionals are needed. It is not enough to be a young woman with no or few qualifications to take charge of a group of young children, which is unfortunately still too often the case in certain structures. And yet, in France, the training of early childhood professionals is particularly advanced compared to other countries. For three years, the professionals, 92% of whom are women, specialize in welcoming babies and young children. Only in Switzerland can you find the equivalent of such training.
This is also a theme that was raised during the health crisis: these care professions, mainly carried out by women, are poorly paid and under-regarded…
Absolutely. The social and medico-social sectors are going through an unprecedented recruitment crisis, which is also accompanied by a lack of interest among younger generations in these professions. This lack of interest has multiple explanations, such as working conditions and poor salaries. But also the discouragement of professionals, who are fewer and fewer in number in increasingly busy services.
Looking after a group of two-year-olds is extremely difficult. American researchers have shown that the energy expended by a two-year-old child, when measured against his or her body, i.e. a small body, is the equivalent of that expended by a top athlete in training. Imagine the amount of energy expended when you have a dozen children! Without justifying it, knowing this, we can understand that some poorly trained professionals can “lose their cool”.
Patience and what I call “presence” in social work are skills that can be learned, but they require taking the time. However, time is money, it is paid for and remunerated. This is precisely what is most lacking in private, for-profit structures. As a result, professionals are transformed into Uber delivery people. That is to say, they must perform a whole bunch of tasks as quickly as possible, such as changing a child’s diaper or doing educational activities. All this to the largest possible group, in order to make everything profitable.
What you describe gives the impression that our society is not at all designed to integrate dependent populations. Whether they are young children, the elderly or even those with disabilities…
All these sectors, whether social or medico-social, suffer enormously from what I call a “crisis of temporalities”. These professions do not necessarily require colossal equipment or great technicality. In fact, what is strongly needed in social work is time. However, in a society like ours, these times are urgent. Rushing work is dreadful for the social sector because it leads to dramatic consequences. You cannot be in a hurry when you are looking after a baby or a dependent elderly person. All these populations require first and foremost that we take care of them in a necessarily long time. This is the whole problem to which a society is subjected that lives mainly on profitability, on haste, which is contradictory with all the professions of social work.
In your opinion, can early childhood and old age be compatible with the private profit sector?
This is a delicate question. I would not dismiss out of hand the possibility that we can provide a quality service and make money, or at least not lose any. Similarly, I do not rule out the possibility that in the public or voluntary sector, we may not also observe mistreatment. We recently saw, within the National Education system, a teacher behave maliciously towards a schoolgirl. And yet this happens in the public service.
So be careful, I am not saying that we observe the same phenomena in the public service and in the private profit sector. For the moment, the one that is giving the worst example is the private profit sector.
How could the situation be improved?
We need to rebuild a public service for early childhood and another for old age. In the aftermath of the war, these were the services that set an example and showed that we were capable of meeting the needs of our society. I am fully aware that this is wishful thinking that is not very realistic. But there are not 36 ways to finance these essential services. The money can come from the State, local authorities, businesses or citizens. In any case, nothing is free. It is not because we do not pay for a service or that we are treated for free that it costs nothing. However, I have the impression that French citizens sometimes tend to forget this, except when the service is lacking or failing, as is the case with early childhood or retirement homes.