УДК 364

ОСНОВНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ФРАНЦУЗСКОГО БЛАГОСОСТОЯНИЯ

THE MAIN CHALLENGES OF THE FRENCH WELFARE STATE

Алексеенко М.А., студент 6 курс, факультет «Социологии», Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Россия, г. Санкт-Петербург

Аннотация: Статья посвящена анализу истоков и современного положения французского государства всеобщего благосостояния. Как отмечает автор статьи, французская модель социального обеспечения в последние годы столкнулась с рядом трудностей. В статье рассматриваются три основные причины, такие как финансовая и демографические проблемы, и «правовая дилемма». Анализ данных факторов помогает лучше понять природу нынешнего кризиса социального обеспечения во Франции и выработать комплексное решение.

Summary: The article is devoted to the analysis of the origins and current situation of the French welfare state. As the author of the article notes, French model of social security in recent years has faced a number of challenges. The article discusses three main reasons, such as financial and demographic problems, and so-called “rights dilemma”. Analyzing these factors helps to better understand the nature of the current welfare crisis in France and to develop a comprehensive solution.

Ключевые слова: государство всеобщего благосостояния, социальное обеспечение, социальная защита, французская модель благосостояния, движение жёлтых жилетов.

Key words: welfare state, social security, social protection, French welfare model, yellow vests movement.

The French welfare state that emerged in the post-war years after about forty years underwent a number of qualitative changes: for example, the state’s role in social welfare significantly increased, as since the 1990s every year precisely the Parliament approves the project of financing the social sphere. At the time, new tools of financing were also consolidated, including through taxes on social spending. And the most vulnerable groups of the population could count on additional benefits (the Revenu Minimum d’Insertion for low income people and the Couverture Maladie Universelle for people without health insurance), which were also financed from the budget through taxes. All these measures helped to strengthen the structure by creating at once two strong and stable components, namely the private and public contributions to the welfare system.

However, as early as the 90s, the government’s policy of reducing social expenditures took on the new momentum during the 2008 global financial crisis. Since then, the costs of pensions and medical insurance have been drastically reduced as necessary measures. Another wake-up call for the failure of the French welfare system was a joint stability program with the European Commission, the goal of which was to reduce the budget deficit firstly to a minimum level (3%), and then to zero indicator. And ones again, the main opportunity for the implementation of that program was the reduction of spending on social needs. Ten years after that stability program, the new president Macron talks again about totally the same budget deficit due to social spending and the need for new measures to address that issue. And whether new ideas of the new cabinet will be successful, we can only predict.

Based on the facts and data above, it may be worthwhile to ask the following questions. Does the social security system that was formed at the end of the last century always work effectively now? Does it meet the current requirements of globalization? And what are the main problems were faced during the last ten years? We will try to answer these questions later in this brief essay.

Financial challenges

About the French case people can say that the economic wealth of the country[1] does not guarantee the absence or low rates of poverty. According to 2017 statistics, approximately 8.8 million people live below the poverty in France; it is approximately 13% of the population. 61% of those numbers are people of working age. Below poverty means that income per person is less than € 1026 a month. During period of global economic crisis, French increase in poverty rates could be reasoned by general economic downturns worldwide, but now, already ten years later, the problems of poverty in France are caused by different and even more complex factors.

Despite the shocking statistics of poverty, one cannot say that the state does not invest in the social sphere. On the contrary, according to the OECD study, social spending already accounted for 25% of GDP in the 1990s, and in recent years has just increased, and in 2018 amounted to 32% of GDP, which is much higher than the average in developed countries. The current government aims to reduce this indicator by three points by 2022 that means the state needs to find extra exchequer in the amount of 65-70 billion Euros. This is the main problem at the moment social security remains as an erosion of the budget, and the more time passes, the worse the situation becomes. Even when French state looks for ways or applies new models of the welfare state, first it is necessary to cover already existing budget deficit.

It is also worth considering one more case. Began with dissatisfaction with the increase in fuel tax, the situation in France led to an active Yellow vests movement, a large share of the activists are low-income people and retirees. As a response, Macron increased the package of social benefits and reduced the tax for these categories of citizens. But according to prognoses of experts, such measure will greatly affect the budget and lead to an excess of the acceptable level (according to the norms of the European Union) of budget deficit. As a result, it will adversely affect domestic and foreign policy. To conclude, analyzing such a chain reaction, it seems that France is facing a really serious crisis of the social welfare system.

Demographic issue

Despite of high fertility rates, France has difficulty with increasing number of the elderly people. According to French charity organization the Secours Catholique, there is a tendency the elderly become poorer compared with previous decades, and the number of the elderly people below poverty is approaching 10%. At the same time, as before pension payments make up a large part of state costs for social security. Current situation is attributable to an increase in life expectancy in developed countries, while the previous schemes of pension contributions were not designed for such a number of elderly people.

As described earlier, retirees are actively involved in the Yellow vests movement in order to achieve a qualitative improvement in the case of social security. Analyzing the latest measures to address the issue, namely the percentage by which pension benefit would increase is less than expected inflation (pension recalculation — 0.3%, expected inflation — 1.8%), it can be assumed that the position of pensioners would not improve significantly, and such demonstrations would continue to draw attention not only to pension, but also to a number of other social issues.

«Rights» dilemma

In France, the social security system is structured as follows: having a number of certain social characteristics (for example, unemployed, single-mother, having many children, not having their own housing and so on), a person has the so-called right to welfare payments. They can be paid in the form of «»social payments» (for costs related to healthcare or housing benefits), «social services payments» (for services such as public transport), «financial aid» (reduced interest rates, loans, and grants), and you could accumulate payments from all these categories.»[2] In this case, there are no restrictions on how many payments a person can receive. Since in France, the observance of the principle of equal rights is above all, therefore, even if a person does not need this money, she/he receives it. It constitutes a huge con of such social payment structure, since even the basic equal opportunity rights are implemented, the redistribution process itself does not seem so efficient, and it also could increase the budget deficit.

It also causes an increase in number of people who benefit from those structure’s disadvantages. Their monthly income at work is so low that it is easier to be officially registered as unemployed, and still the monthly income would be higher than to work full time. The number of such recipients is only increasing, and the government knows. But since the problem lies in the basis of the system and its established traditions, it is not so easy to drastically change situation.

To sum up, this essay addressed three main challenges to the French welfare state, namely the demographic issue, ‘social rights’ dilemma and the financial problems of French welfare state. However, it is worth noting that these are not all issues that require paying close attention of the current authorities. Unemployment rate is stable in France (from 2014 to 2017 the employment rate is approximately 70%), women and children remain less protected categories of the population, and a large number of migrants do not have official status, as a result, they do not receive even a basic social package and live in extreme poverty. Since all these problems are closely related to each other, they require a comprehensive solution. Although so far at the moment the structure of the welfare state in France shows its inconsistency.

As a new political measure, Macron proposes to completely revise the welfare state model and focus in the future on the Scandinavian model, which is characterized by a flexible system of social security and a rejection of rigid labor laws so that people can more easily move through the labor market. Also, this model implies active assistance with job training and specialty retraining. As noted earlier, such measures can solve several issues at once, since with the help of cooperation with non-state institutions, the state can improve the situation with unemployment, and thus guaranteeing the budget stability for social needs. However, on the contrary, I believe that the movement towards the Scandinavian model will not help the elderly generation, because the problem of their poverty lies in the mistakes of the previous models of pension contributions. As a result, the full transition to an alternative model is not easily accessible, so it is possible that the Macron government should consider using an intermediate model to address several fundamental problems of the country’s social security together.

Рекомендации

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3. Hassenteufel P. (2016). Смешивание через кризис: французское государство всеобщего благосостояния в условиях финансового стресса. В Шуберт, Клаус, де Виллота, Палома, Кульман, Йоханна (ред.), Вызовы для европейских систем социального обеспечения (стр. 247-269).

4. Эммануил Макрон обещает пересмотреть французское государство всеобщего благосостояния. Получено с https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/09/macron-pledges-to-overhaul-french-welfare-state
5. Франция является коронованным чемпионом мира по социальным расходам. Получено с https://www.thelocal.fr/20190123/france-is-world-champion-in-social-spending-study-finds
6. Международный валютный фонд. Перспективы развития мировой экономики. Получено с https://clck.ru/FSaJn
7. Макрон считает, что метку элитарного игрока трудно поколебать, но у него есть преимущество. Получено с https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/15/macron-finds-elitist-tag-hard-to-shake-but-he-has-the-upper-hand
8. Макрон прав: французская система социального обеспечения — это нелепые расходы. Получено с https://fee.org/articles/macron-is-right-the-french-welfare-system-is-a-ludicrous-expenditure/
9. Раскрыты: шокирующие масштабы бедности во Франции в 2018 году. Получено с https://www.thelocal.fr/20181108/report-the-shocking-truth-about-po нужно-in-france-in-2018
10. Эти 5 номеров объясняют, почему французы на улицах. Получено с https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/world/europe/france-economy-protests.html

[1] According to the International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook, France ranks the 6^th place in the list of countries in terms of GNP, but rates of economic growth is extremely low (approximately 1%).

[2] Macron Is Right: The French Welfare System Is a Ludicrous Expenditure. Retrieved from https://fee.org/articles/macron-is-right-the-french-welfare-system-is-a-ludicrous-expenditure/