The words of Laurent Wauquiez against the RSA (Active Solidarity Income)
call for three comments.
1. About Mr. Wauquiez
He is, for me, a priori, an honorable man, coming from the Republican Right,
having a decent education, therefore able to understand the meaning of the
words he uses. And yet, he has just crossed for the second time in three
months, the yellow line: after making comments with obviously anti-semitic
connotation (unintentionally, it seemed then to the most indulgent mind)
about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now he does it again, this time, by calling
poverty and welfare “the cancer of society.” Appalling. And this time, he
cannot claim, as in the previous case, a misinterpretation of his words; it
is clearly an assimilation stating that all support to the weakest is a
fatal disease that can destroy society. In both cases, he would regain my
esteem, if indeed it matters to him, only by apologizing for his strong
language. If he does not, it is because he assumes them. And he would have
then, for me, moved on the other side of the mirror.
2. About the criticism on welfare.
The right by nature has always had difficulties in accepting, that we take
from the richest for the benefit of the poorest; and in particular, it has
long denounced any support to the unemployed, the poor, the sick, the
disabled persons, in other words all those that the powerful have always
dreamed to compel to work for wages as low as possible. We find also
identical comments to those of Mr. Wauquiez in the mouth of British leaders
at the end of the 18th century, when the first law on welfare for the
poorest appeared (known as the Speenhamland law) until they succeeded, with
the law of 1834, with the same arguments as Mr. Wauquiez, to send back poor
people to hard labor in the appalling workhouses that Karl Marx, and many
others, denounced afterwards.
3. About the answer to poverty and unemployment.
It is sad to see, once again, democrats, from the left and the right, be
content with getting indignant by this questioning of the most fundamental
achievements of the Republic. By agreeing to discuss the question of whether
unemployment benefits are sufficient or excessive, then they play the game
of the far-right; because they will always convince taxpayers that they are
overtaxed to compensate for those whom they denounce as lazy people. The
democrats should rather be indignant at the failure of our societies, which
creates poverty and unemployment, with the need for such allowances. And
they should give foremost priority to the real means to escape this.
The RSA is not the solution to poverty; it corresponds to a conception as
archaic as that of those who oppose it: to the cynical right of the 19th
century who refused any welfare, the RSA opposes the caritative and
hypocritically charitable right of this same 19th century. The 20th
century’s answer was already different: providing work for everyone through
the action of the State. Faced with the growing desire for knowledge,
dignity and freedom, the answer of the 21st century is to help people get
trained in order to progress in their professional lives, to find some
rewarding work (flexisecurity and contract of evolution) or to create a
business (micro finance and coaching). All the experiments show that trust
and belief in the potential of everyone is the best way to do without
welfare.
If we wanted indeed to move the debate on these real fields, we would
realize that there is the real failure of the French political class: the
right has remained in a compassionate vision of poverty and did not
generalize the professional transition contracts (known as CTP), which was
the beginning of a French flexisecurity (and that we called “contract for
evolution” in the report of the commission which I chaired). And the left
does not even talk about flexisecurity and micro-business creation in its
program (even worse: the few people who spoke of it, in the labor unions,
called it the “professional social security,” as if, for them too,
unemployment was a disease).
It is urgent for the political class, to understand the new century which is
beginning, and to evaluate its aspirations and new tools, not to lead the
country into dead-end roads. To open itself to a world that can still be a
blooming place.