dFor seven long years, our voices have been periodically raised against Emmanuel Macron’s presidential promise to develop and then generalize universal national service (UNS). [dispositif expérimenté depuis 2019, dans le cadre duquel des jeunes participent à des « séjours de cohésion » et à des missions d’intérêt général]. From progress to regression, this false good idea is waved as the banner of its youth politics, while it is hypocrisy and financial mismanagement. The Court of Auditors, if it uses other words, does not say anything different from us.
It is time to abandon universal national service. The SNU is the perfect example of a form of governing with forceps: Emmanuel Macron’s “thing” has never been debated in Parliament and is imposed through restrictions on the worlds of national education and popular education. So, we affirm, the SNU is just a policy of image and emptiness. A communication tool lacking ambition, a tool lacking meaning but inflated with financial and human resources: a true waste at a time of delicate budgetary situation.
While the government must work to reduce and rationalize spending in favor of integration and the environment, the “unreasonable financial burden” of the SNU, denounced in the parliamentary opinion report on the finance bill for 2024 [avis n° 1781 signé Jean-Claude Raux, à l’initiative de cette tribune, au nom de la commission des affaires culturelles et de l’éducation de l’Assemblée nationale]It is neither sustainable nor desirable.
On September 13, the Court of Auditors also warned, in a report, of a “Very underestimated cost”. The SNU constitutes a predicted slide for our public finances. 160 million euros are already dedicated to a policy that does not achieve its objectives: every year, the number of young people in the UNS is lower than forecast (see, for example, the annex to the finance bill for 2024, “draft of annual performance, inter-ministerial mission for sport, youth and community life”, page 122).
General disorganization
According to the Court of Auditors, it would be necessary to find between 3,500 and 5,000 million euros to finance the system in case of generalization to an entire age group. We don’t have them. Or it would mean programming the end of the financing of associations, of popular education, whose budgets would be totally absorbed by the SNU… Lack of personnel in decentralized services, crisis in hiring properly trained supervisors, seriously degraded working conditions, lack of adequate staff, buildings, transportation problems… the UNS has often embodied widespread disorganization.
You have 45.4% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
