Two full buses traveled from the Pays de Dieulefit Bourdeaux community of communes to Valence this Monday. A little over an hour's drive to arrive in front of the departmental hotel, to install the fanfare there, “employment, not unemployment” signssinging songs for Marie-Pierre Mouton, the president of the Drôme departmental council: everyone was protesting against the abandonment of an experiment “territory of zero long-term unemployment”.
The project is simple: create a profitable “employment company” capable of providing work to people far from the world of work, particularly RSA beneficiaries. However, in May 2022, the Department took a decision to support this experiment, but involuntarily slipped in a typo. For two years, dozens of volunteers worked on the project, the company is ready to operate in early 2025 by hiring 20 people. But because of the typo, a new deliberation had to be re-voted, and in two years the departmental council changed its mind.
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Profitability requires
Marie-Pierre Mouton, the president of the departmental council, believes that this “territory with zero long-term unemployment” experiment is not effective. To do this, she takes the example of another experiment, carried out in the Drôme Valley. Recently interviewed on France Bleu, she explained:“It is 270,000 euros which were paid by the Department for a return to employment of 15 RSA recipients in two years. Reports at the national level show that this economic model is not proven”she adds. According to her, the money invested does not give a return on sustainable employment without public money. For an experiment to be financially neutral for the Department, at least 40% of RSA people must be hired.
For the demonstrators present this Monday in Valencia, these arguments do not hold up. “Certainly in Livron, in the other experiment, only 15 of the 57 people who found a job are RSA beneficiaries. But the Department forgets two things. Firstly, all those who were not registered with the RSA but could have been 'be, being still far from employment Then the experiment in Teil (in Ardèche), where the quota allowing financial balance is reached.explains Fabienne Simian, president of the community of communes.
Workers on the floor
There remains a chance for the Department to vote on this deliberation authorizing the experiment: the next council meeting on December 9. The demonstrators are therefore hoping for a turnaround, especially those who should have been hired in January in the employment enterprise (EBE). “I am a disabled worker, due to a head injury. In all the odd jobs that I have done, the working hours are too intense, this EBE allowed me to choose my hours”says Cassandre. “It was an incredible bargain, I receive a work accident pension but it is low, a few hundred euros per month on top of that is not negligible, I find myself with my mouth in water.”
Another situation, that of Alain, a worker who is missing around ten quarters to be retired. “I was an accountant for several decades, I stopped for personal reasons, then I took care of my very elderly parents, I was a family caregiver. This company really interested me.” he testifies. He is one of the volunteers who helped set up the project, just like Thérèse, now retired. And annoyed. “For a story about an acronym in a deliberation already voted on, I find it ludicrous, I don't understand the Department. Some of my comrades need quarters for retirement, others simply to eat and heat their homes, to have a real permanent contract, a lasting job”.
