“The situation of the poorest is further deteriorating”: Secours Catholique warns of the precarious state of more than a million French people

Poverty is “getting worse” and national solidarity is “disappearing”: this is the alarming observation drawn up by Catholic Reliefin an annual report published this Thursday, November 14. For its 2024 report, beyond multifaceted poverty, the association warns of the difficult access to social benefits, accentuated by the dematerialization of procedures.

To draw up this observation, Secours Catholique relied on data collected from its beneficiaries. In 2023, the association provided assistance to more than a million people.

Women, the first victims of poverty

With and median standard of living of 555 euros per month95% of the people met live below the poverty line, and 74%, below the extreme poverty line. “We have never encountered so many households living without any resources,” reports Secours Catholique. Poverty is especially concentrated in Île-de-France, where foreigners represent 80% of the households met by the association.

The requests expressed to the association by households are first of all to l’food aid (46%),listenof thehelp paying bills. Secours Catholique notes that 46.1% of households are in arrears, and access to stable housing is impossible for more than a third of people.

In 2023, women are the first victims of poverty: “they represent 56.7% of the people encountered”, notes the association, which specifies thatone in four women is a single mother.

While it welcomes an increasingly large proportion of young people each year – a third of people are under the age of 15 – Secours Catholique nevertheless observes “an aging of the people welcomed”.

Social protection: “an everyday shield”

In its report, the association observes that “national solidarity as it is expressed through social benefits” is “central in people’s lives”. While 60% of households mention “life accidents”, such as a separation, a move, an illness or even a loss of job, the use of these social benefits represents 82% of the resources received in 2023.

However, Secours Catholique deplores that “as the years pass, this solidarity fades and moves away.” The association observes in fact a decline in access to rightswhich she attributes to a tightening of the eligibility criteria concerning APL, RSA and unemployment benefits. In the Pyrénées-Orientales, the rate of non-recourse to the RSA reaches 37.4% in 2023, i.e. + 53.8% compared to 2020. In question: “the reform of unemployment insurance which tilted part of of the unemployed towards inactivity, like young workers. Increasingly singled out as solely responsible for their situation, people deprived of employment “see their protection net fraying”.

“Solidarity is earned”

In addition to the tightening of criteria for access to aid, there is a remoteness and dematerialization of public services. Medical deserts, school closures, downsizing have contributed in recent years to a move away from counters. “This remoteness makes the possibility and cost of mobility an even more crucial issue, particularly in rural areas.”

So for some, no doubt, the possibility of doing things online represents a real saving of time. But this dematerialization is also accompanied by a dehumanization of public services. “Too often, the request for a service resembles an obstacle course,” explains the association. “Each of the stages can be complex, fraught with pitfalls and uncertain depending on the time frame of the administrations and the means of action.” Dematerialization makes the problem even more complex, especially when we don't know how to use a computer, or don't have one.

In 2023, solidarity must therefore be earned. And to this real obstacle course “are added accusatory public speeches towards the accusers, criticizes the association. These speeches, based on an a priori suspicion, have very concrete repercussions for people when they are not perceived as 'deserving' of an allowance”.