Brief history of reforms and awareness to fight against social exclusion in France, then where we are today in terms of social exclusion, and finally 4 quotations to feed the reflection on social exclusion.
History of social exclusion in France
1893: Law on free medical assistance
1904: Law on assistance to abandoned children
1905: Law on assistance to the infirm and incurable elderly
1945: Creation of the Social Security
1950: Creation of the minimum wage
1954: Appeal by Abbé Pierre
1956: Creation of the minimum old age pension
1967: Creation of the ANPE
1970: The minimum wage is replaced by the minimum wage, indexed to inflation and growth
1975: Law on aid to the disabled
Social exclusion in France today
A telling statistic about social exclusion is the number of homeless people. He 2012 Insee survey counted 133,000 homeless people in France, 10% of whom were homeless.
Sociological research, because of the plurality of causes that lead to the exclusion, has identified risk factors for social exclusion in general.
The main risk factors are
- Emotional abandonment
- Divorce
- Childhood abuse
- Rupture with his family
- Disability
- Professional failure (no job, unemployment) or school failure
Reflections and quotes on social exclusion
According to Alain Touraine, we should no longer think of the social divide in a vertical way: “those at the top and those at the bottom” (the very rich and the very poor), but in a horizontal way: “those inside and those outside”.
“And in the heart of our so civilized home, behind the Place des Arts, there is a human being who sleeps outside at 25° below zero.” Monique Proulx, Les Aurores montréalaises, 1998.
“Our country must embark on the fight against social exclusion, by multiplying the number of jobs.” – François Bayrou at the Meeting in Caen on March 1, 2007
“No civilization has lasted when it accepted the social fracture of the excluded.” Jacques Chirac at the France 2 Newspapers on September 5, 1995
Hello, I have just discovered your site, thank you for all this work. I can’t find anything on fear, theme of the year for the Sciences-Po competition… or am I not looking well?
Hello Sabine, Thank you for your interest. What you say is correct, we are still working on publishing articles regarding fear. It should happen soon, but if you choose to work specifically on this theme rather than revolutions, it is important to start now the work of revisions, which you may have already done! Good luck, The Academics in Politics team
Thank you for your quick feedback… I try to work both 😉