The kind of proposals with which it is not only friends

INVEST IN THE SOCIAL

by Jacques Delors and Michel Dollé, Odile Jacob, 285 pages, 23 euros.

Good start, good eye. At the age of eighty-three, one who was the Minister of Finance of Mitterrand and then a President of the European Commission clearly foremost that other has not lost its occasioned or sense of wit. Although he talks of retirement, one feels the ready to ferrailler still few in given the opportunity. His best medicine when he feels less in shape A trip to New York, this extraordinary city where everyone is and where it entrusts his life to seventy-five taxi drivers. This hymn to work similar to Nicolas Sarkozy No discomfort. Because, as folklore, what he proposes in the demanding book he co-choreographed with Michel Dollé, is a true social democratic program involving choices that would grind some teeth particularly among the voters of Nicolas Sarkozy, but not only where a Government is in develops a day.

At the centre, therefore, work. Up the welfare State as a safety net to citizens who are in need, Delors proposed the State to invest more in all future citizens and citizens to give them as much as possible the means to be autonomous by winning properly their lives. This applies of course also for women the two authors have explicitly in mind the high number of divorces and "homes" lone for youth and seniors. Photography of France inequalities is distorted if we wanted to compare the differences between those who have a full-time job. In 2002, a study of the Council of employment, income and social cohesion (CERC), the difference in hourly earnings between the lower-paid 10 and 10 best paid was 1-3. The gap widens considerably if it includes insofar as all those who have no employment or work intermittently and comparing inequalities in terms of annual remuneration. The indicator of inequality met then 13 and same 18 for women.

Once this belief is raised, it leads to two major choices: priority to the training of future workers from the earliest age and an improvement of the quality of jobs. Can both improve the qualification of all future workers and continue to subsidize the low-skilled jobs. When asked about the phenomena of "downgrading" to work in French society (the girl forced to accept a job as a cashier at bac 5), co-author of Jacques Delors highlights the fact that the France funds for many years the low-skilled jobs (relief of loads, tax jobs at home, etc.), which ultimately not be occupied by... of qualified people.

Rethinking the school system

However, Jacques Delors and Michel Dollé are especially effusive about the school and the poor performance of the French school system, which leaves on the tile too many students without any qualification (1 of 6 1 of 12 in the Nordic countries) and with even less confidence in them, students who are often as by chance the children of the most disadvantaged social categories. An idea force: it is before the College that everything plays. The game of "If you were Minister of National Education," Jacques Delors replied without hesitation: "A constant budget, I transférerais means of secondary to primary." In high school can simplify (delete options), increased if necessary the number of students per class to identify ways to reduce in primary education. The other strong proposal of the two authors concerns childhood. Need to "socialize" early smaller and especially the children of the most disadvantaged social categories by creating a real public service of childhood. How the Fund By removing or by strongly decreasing tax cuts that subsidize employment at home and childcare for the more well-to-do social classes. The kind of proposals with which it is not only friends... Jobs at home and other childminders are true cross fire of the two authors because they summarize what they recommend to end: subsidizing of jobs of "poor quality" and tax expenditure that promote primarily the wealthy.

Around this central issue, the two authors spend screen some of recent or ongoing reforms in direct relation to their subject matter, including that of vocational training and the creation of solidarity revenue (RSA) active. On the first point, Jacques Delors, who gave his name to the founding legislation on the subject (1971), does not recognize his child and is concerned that reforms are not sufficiently radical. On the RSA, in contrast, the tone is the congratulations. Its creator, Martin Hirsch, was any Government member invited to the dinner hosted by the Publisher on the two authors.

What may be the fate of this very serious and documented book to halfway between the book and the report It is first a kind of intellectual balance after eight years of joint activity of the two authors to the CERC. Even if the daughter of Jacques Delors is first Secretary of the Socialist Party, these ideas were not official status to the PS. But clearly the author détesterait not that they be at least discussed.