Elisabeth Borne wished Friday in Salon-de-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône) "to reconnect with the spirit of the RMI" set up by Michel Rocard in 1988 to support in a more personalized and more directive way towards employment people at the RSA.
The idea of the RMI (Minimum integration income) was to "allow everyone to have enough to live on while at the same time being supported towards employment", in "an integration process", but "we have a little lost sight of this objective," the Prime Minister told the press.
"Allowances have taken up more and more space in the budgets of the departments to the detriment of support and integration into employment. What we want to do is reconnect with the spirit of the RMI and its ensure that we do not leave beneficiaries of the RSA (Revenu de solidarité active, editor’s note) for years without support”, she developed.
The RMI was set up in 1988 by the government of socialist Michel Rocard and then replaced in 2009 by the RSA, which stands at 607 euros for a single person.
However, despite the drop in unemployment and labor shortages in many sectors, the number of RSA recipients has hardly decreased since 2017, around 1.9 million. And only 40% of them are registered with Pôle emploi.
This new support, tested in 18 departments, is part of the France Travail reform, which will replace Pôle Emploi. It will be more personalized and will make it easier to apply penalties for recipients who do not respect their obligations.
The envisaged objective of 15 to 20 hours of activity per week, which does not appear in the law, will be "adapted" to everyone, said the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, also present, in the face of fears from associations fighting against poverty.
"It's a win-win approach" for job seekers and for companies, underlined Elisabeth Borne, in front of an audience of elected officials, companies and employment actors, including the presidents of the Renaud Muselier region and Martine Vassal department.
After meeting former RSA recipients, she heard at the Local Mission of young beneficiaries of youth employment contracts (CEJ), which she had set up when she was Minister of Labor and which inspired the "contract of commitment" of RSA recipients.
More than 300,000 young people out of work have signed a CEJ since its launch in March 2022.
The Prime Minister had maintained her trip despite the knife attack the day before against several children in Annecy, where she immediately went on Thursday. "We are following the situation very carefully. The president is there, he will be alongside the families. We are really still completely upset by what happened," she said.
09/06/2023 14:14:45 - Salon-de-Provence (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
