Faced with a budget for 2025 in which the State seeks to save several tens of billions of euros, the universal national service (SNU), already widely rejected by teachers’ unions and approved youth and parent associations, has increasingly fewer defenders. This system, desired by Emmanuel Macron, was created in 2019 and the Head of State has continued to promise, since then, its generalization to all young people between 15 and 17 years old by 2026. If this objective was still defended by the old majority presidential during On the eve of the early legislative elections of 2024, many parliamentarians are now urging the abandonment of the SNU, criticized even within the government.
The finance committees of the National Assembly and the Senate adopted amendments on Wednesday, October 31, to remove it from the Finance Bill (PLF) 2025.
In the Borbón Palace, the elected representatives of the New Popular Front, present in large numbers in the few ranks of the finance commission, approved one of the amendments presented by the groups that make up the left alliance to cancel the 128 million euros of credits planned for the SNU in 2025. The socialist Pierrick Courbon (Loire) denounced a “budget heresy” while the environmentalist Jean-Claude Raux (Loire-Atlantique) vilified a “presidential gadget” WHO “not working” AND “It’s expensive.”
In the Senate, the socialist rapporteur for the credits of the “Youth” program, Eric Jeansannetas, also presented an amendment aimed at eliminating the system, approved according to him unanimously with two abstentions. “After five years of experimentation, it does not seem (…) It is not that the universal national service provides sufficient added value compared to other youth participation policies to justify its continued deployment.”argued in his report, presented behind closed doors before the commission and consulted by the world. The president of the culture, education and communication commission of the Luxembourg Palace, the centrist Laurent Lafon, had already warned, on October 24 in the Public Senate, that he would also propose the abolition of the SNU, considering it “in a dead end.”
Questions about the device
These votes are, at this stage, symbolic. The two assemblies must decide on the amendments in a public session and, even if they approve them, the Government could choose not to maintain said modifications in the final version of the text in case of approval by the PLF through article 49.3 of the Constitution.
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