The astonishing choice of Martine Vassal to experiment with the RSA against hours worked

The statistics, for years, paint the same alarming picture. In the Bouches-du-Rhône, access to employment is a real difficulty with which a large proportion of Marseillais is confronted. According to INSEE, over the period 2010-2018, Marseille is characterized by a relatively high unemployment rate, averaging 12.4%, well above the national average. The difficulties are particularly concentrated in certain districts, notably the northern districts. Thus, in 2019, still according to INSEE, 14.5% of the inhabitants of the 16th arrondissement of Marseille aged between 15 and 64 were unemployed.

In this context, last September, the president of the departmental council, Martine Vassal, announced that she was a candidate for the experiment initiated by Emmanuel Macron, aimed at conditioning the payment of the Active solidarity income, known as RSA, to a minimum of fifteen hours. of activity per week. The one who had supported Emmanuel Macron a few months earlier for his re-election, thus took over an electoral promise from the President of the Republic.

End of volunteering

A few months later, according to our information, the president of the departmental council and her services went to Paris to submit their copy to the government. With a perimeter chosen to say the least astonishing. The executives of the famous blue boat are indeed planning to carry out this project in the 5th and 7th arrondissements, i.e. two rather well-to-do districts in the city center of Marseille, and little affected by the issues of remoteness from employment and ostracization. Thus, still according to INSEE, in 2019, the unemployment rate was 10.9% in the fifth arrondissement of Marseille.

It should be noted that RSA beneficiaries over the age of 60 and those with a state of health incompatible with a professional life would be excluded from this experiment. For the others, if volunteering to take part in this system was first announced by Martine Vassal, it is no longer relevant today. In detail, 1,600 people are targeted in the fifth arrondissement, and 400 in the seventh.

A demonstration on February 3

“The State asked us to work on a complete living area, with a number of RSA beneficiaries who are around 2,000 people, justifies Sabine Bernasconi, vice-president of the Bouches-du-Rhône departmental council delegated to the occupational integration. If we had set up this experiment in the northern districts, it went well beyond the framework of the experiment. With their computers, the departmental council services made additions to meet the state’s request to have 2,000 people in the same living area, and that’s how we chose the fifth and seventh arrondissements. . But it is not because these neighborhoods have fewer RSA beneficiaries that these beneficiaries are less in difficulty than the others! »

A way to falsify the results to make this experiment a success, according to the CGT, which cries scam against a backdrop of political posture. “They just want to answer that yes, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, the beneficiaries, we hold them and we train them”, annoys Valérie Marque, CGT representative of the staff within the departmental council of Bouches-du-Rhône. During a press conference on Monday, the union proclaimed its opposition to this experimentation in the spirit deemed “filthy”. On February 3, at 11 a.m., the union will organize a rally in front of the blue boat to protest against this measure, the implementation of which was planned for March 1. An uncertain date, however, according to Sabine Bernasconi, who claims to have asked the State, with other candidate territories, for a postponement.

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