It is no longer acceptable to make savings on the backs of the most vulnerable.

We have clearly understood that savings must be made everywhere and that the most important sectors for the future will suffer – health, education, culture – but is it really reasonable that, on top of that, the standard of living of the most precarious continues to increase more slowly than that of the most well-off ? The answer is, of course, in the question. That savings must be made, given the state of public finances, seems obvious. That this always concerns the same people is no longer bearable. Inequality indicators are rising and have reached some of the highest levels in thirty years. And we are surprised that many of those most affected seek comfort from the far right, which, as usual, shaves for free.

The blank year on social benefits and the freeze on the amount and thresholds of social security benefits won't help matters. Not to mention yet another unemployment insurance reform in the pipeline, which aims to reduce the duration of entitlements and tighten access conditions, while a previous reform two years ago had precisely contributed to this impoverishment. And everything is in line with this: our report in Finistère to document the hunt for the most vulnerable clearly shows this. The Prime Minister, who was High Commissioner for Planning from 2020 to 2025 and who therefore had plenty of time to plan poverty reduction targets, verbally promised earlier this month to entrust the National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion with the task of defining a ten-year poverty reduction target. This doesn't cost anything. But, given the electoral calendar (municipal and then presidential elections, not to mention a possible change of government in the fall), it is likely that this umpteenth report will be forgotten. And that, in the meantime, if no strong measures are adopted, inequalities will inexorably continue to increase.