Faced with an increase in the placement of children in danger and an influx of unaccompanied foreign minors, the departments are warning of an “untenable” and “explosive” situation before the summer in the child protection sector.
This double pressure complicates their efforts to comply with the Taquet child protection law which plans to no longer use hotels to accommodate them from February 2024. A measure taken when a young person on social assistance at the childhood (ASE) had stabbed another to death in a hotel in the Paris suburbs in 2019.
The General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) had estimated in 2021 that more than 7,500 young people from ASE were staying in hotels.
“Untenable situation”
A decree of provisional application to limit, or even ban from now on, in certain departments, hotel accommodation, is expected. If everyone agrees to avoid the hotel, achieving it is proving more complicated with the increase in the number of young people placed under the protection of the ASE, managed by the departments, according to the Assembly of the departments of France (ADF).
Secretary of State for Children Charlotte Caubel acknowledges to AFP “very strong pressure on child protection, with an increase in placements. This is the result of our efforts to free speech on violence against children and an increase in the arrival of unaccompanied minors, whose number is returning to pre-health crisis levels”.
“ASE services are under pressure. The situation is untenable and explosive,” warns François Sauvadet, president of the ADF. “A third of the minors entrusted to the ASE required child psychiatry monitoring. But there is a lack of resources. The services are saturated” against a backdrop of a shortage of mental health care, he adds.
Flow of miners from Italy
Added to this is an influx of unaccompanied minors (MNA) in the border departments of Italy. The Alpes-Maritimes have seen the arrival of “2,600 additional unaccompanied minors since the start of the year and cannot cope with this influx. Throughout France, it is 5,000 more unaccompanied minors since the beginning of the year. In my department, the Côte-d’Or, an increase of 30%, ”explains Mr. Sauvadet.
From the border departments, unaccompanied minors are in fact distributed in all the departments according to a “distribution key”. At the end of 2021, 20,000 unaccompanied minors were taken care of by the ASE, according to the ADF which forecasts 30,000 at the end of 2023, because the bulk of the arrivals generally take place during the summer.
Mayors “not always inclined” to welcome
If they are considered minors, they are entrusted to child protection. During the assessment of their minority, they are supported by the departments. “Unaccompanied minors arrive in waves and the departments cannot adapt in real time”, notes the ADF.
“To assess their minority, we went in one year from four evaluators to 40, asking employees from other social services to come as reinforcements to children’s services, working weekends and public holidays,” explains Christine Teixeira. , deputy director general in charge of the development of human solidarity at the departmental council of the Alpes-Maritimes.
“We mobilize all imaginable sites: hotels, gymnasium, disused military fort. But in a tourist department, it is not easy to accommodate them in hotels and campsites. And the mayors are not always inclined to welcome them,” notes Teixeira.
“Embolism of reception capacities”
The president of the ADF reports an “embolism of reception capacities” in France, which “compromises” according to him the “capacity to implement child protection”, while the care of an unaccompanied child is valued at 50,000 euros per year.
Against the backdrop of the debate on an upcoming immigration law, the ADF called on the State, in a press release in mid-June, to “strengthen the resources of the police and the gendarmerie to manage border flows”.
The departments ask that the State “take charge of these young people during the period of evaluation of their minority”, adds Sauvadet, arguing that “migration policy is a matter for the State, not for the departments”. They are also calling for a suspension of the hotel placement ban as long as this migratory pressure continues.
Without returning to the objective of giving up hotels for 2024, the government is ready to discuss the deadline for the entry into force of the transitional system and has “strengthened the means of control at the border for several weeks”, indicates Charlotte Caubel.