Employment: why haven't public policies for priority neighborhoods worked?

In 2022, the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) estimated the poverty rate in "priority" neighborhoods at 42.6% (compared with 14.8% nationwide), and the unemployment rate at over 19.6% for men and 16.5% for women (compared with around 7.5% and 7.1% respectively nationwide). In response to these persistent economic inequalities, a number of measures to promoteemployment have been put in place, such as "emplois francs", the "1 jeune, 1 solution" (1 young person, 1 solution) plan and the "Cités de l'emploi" (employment centres).

Ousama Bouiss, University of Montpellier

However, in its report assessing these schemes between 2015 and 2021, the Cour des Comptes (French Audit Office) made a stark observation:

"Employment schemes, as they are currently designed and deployed, are not capable of reducing the gaps between [priority neighborhoods] and the rest of the population".

How can we explain this enduring failure of public policy?

Inadequate systems

According to the Cour des Comptes :

"The specific characteristics of priority urban policy districts and their inhabitants are insufficiently taken into account.

Contrary to popular belief, residential mobility and drug trafficking are not enough to explain economic insecurity.

Rather, two complementary causes seem more robust and lead to a vicious circle: poverty and dropping out of school. This observation was already highlighted by the Conseil d'analyse économique (CAE) in a note issued in April 2017:

"Children "inherit" their parents' poverty: they live in disadvantaged areas, have more difficulties at school, and consequently have less access to employment.

However, employment schemes focus on just three areas: support in finding a job, help with recruitment and program coordination. As a result, the source of the school dropout problem remains poorly addressed, leading to investment in measures that focus more on the final consequences than on the root causes.

As the above-mentioned note indicates:

"To break this vicious circle of poverty reproduction, it is essential to go beyond the monetary assistance granted to the most disadvantaged and tackle the determinants of poverty: failure at school, difficulties in finding employment for those with few or no qualifications, and the concentration of poverty in certain neighborhoods, contributing to its persistence."

A poorly targeted investment

In addition, we note the difficulty of rigorously assessing the amount of expenditure and its allocation. According to the Cour des Comptes report :

"The ministry in charge of employment is not in a position to calculate the amount of public resources deployed to promote access to employment for residents of priority urban neighborhoods (QPV), not even on the basis of the budgetary appropriations for which it is responsible.

What's more, the proportion of spending earmarked for priority neighborhoods remains inadequate. Take the case of the "1 young person, 1 solution" plan, whose main objective is to finance apprenticeships. The total cost of this plan is 6.26 billion euros.

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However, for QPV residents, the amount spent would be around 563 million euros, or 9% of the total, i.e. "a lower percentage than the proportion of young people from QPVs on the national territory and the proportion of young people from QPVs looking for work".

Added to this is a second difficulty: "the schemes often benefit the inhabitants with the least difficulties". The case of future jobs, deployed between November 2012 and January 2018, is a good illustration of this situation. According to the 2021 report by the Direction de l'animation de la recherche, des études et des statistiques (part of the Ministry of Labor):

"The scheme is less effective in terms of employment integration for young people with few qualifications or living in disadvantaged areas, who are nevertheless the core target of emplois d'avenir."

An overly complex organization

What's more, the way in which these systems are deployed is problematic. On the one hand, the multiplicity of schemes and the lack of communication reinforce the alienation of the most vulnerable from them. According to the survey conducted by the Cour des Comptes, 65% of residents consider that the schemes are not well known. This figure rises to 72% for the under-35s. In addition, the fact that these schemes are spread across different institutions makes them difficult to understand and access, whether for companies or users.

On the other hand, at national level, shared management between the Ministries of Labor and Urban Affairs remains ineffective due to a "silo" approach. This compartmentalization is such that competing actions are implemented, as illustrated by the case of the "Service public de l'insertion et de l'emploi" (Ministry of Labor) and the "Cités de l'emploi" (City policy). Added to this is the total absence of the Ministry of Education, whose role remains central to the fight against dropping out of school.

Paradigm shift

So what can be done to make these policies effective? First and foremost, the unit of action that sets the fundamental framework for public policy must be the citizen, not the system. As the Cour des Comptes points out,

"The strategy we haven't yet explored is to adapt to the situation of the people we support in all its dimensions (social, educational, professional, etc.) rather than constantly asking them to adapt to our systems.

From then on, this means devising appropriate measures in conjunction with the citizens concerned. It's a question of breaking with an urban policy which, according to Cyprien Avenel, a sociologist of "sensitive neighborhoods", "is not a policy for the city":

"encourages participatory democracy but develops a paternalistic link with the population and implements top-down action (service offering)."

In this sense, the sociologist's work on the modalities of this participation is invaluable for a better understanding of the challenges of such action.

Lastly, the organization itself needs to be reviewed, particularly at national level, where administrative decompartmentalization is essential, as it hinders constructive progress. At local level, the creation of "What Work Centers" along the lines of the British model, whose role would be to support experiments in order to compensate for their shortcomings and attest to their effectiveness, is an unexplored avenue that would seem relevant.

Finally, the ideal of social justice must remain the central driving force. If there is an order to be defended, it is not a security order, but a legal one; one that underpins the dignity and freedom of individuals, and obliges us to do justice. As French philosopher Alfred Fouillée put it in the ^19th century:

"Whenever France allows itself to be dominated by ideas of interest, or by ideas of force, of the struggle for life, of war between nationalities or between classes, it leaves its true tradition [...]. Let her lean on the idea of justice and she will be true to her own spirit."

Ousama Bouiss, PhD student in strategy and organization theory, University of Montpellier

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