YES / “We must promote less late maternity”
BY AGNÈS EVREN
Valérie Pécresse starts from an irrefutable observation: since 2012, family policy in France has been devitalised. It’s very simple: in ten years, the number of births has fallen by 11%. As for the natural balance, that is to say the difference between births and deaths, it was at its lowest for half a century in 2017, according to INSEE. That is why it proposes to review all of our family policy starting by granting an allowance of 900 euros per year to all parents who will have a first child, and until their 18th birthday.
Those who talk about justice are the same people who have unraveled France’s family policy over the past 10 years, when it was an asset for our country. We want to restore the universality of family allowances. If we want to boost the birth rate, we must start by encouraging the French to have a first child, and that as soon as possible. Indeed, the financial obstacle is greatest when women are at the start of their career and it is also during this period that their fertility is highest. We know that many births are postponed for pecuniary reasons.
I would add that this measure, costing 900 million euros, is part of a more global system since Valérie Pécresse intends to provide all family policy with an additional 4 billion euros. It therefore plans to also increase the allowances for families with two and three children; to abolish the conditions of resources for access to approved childminders or even to double the tax credit for jobs in personal services. All this should make it possible to develop family life at home.
We do not forget the most fragile, however, since we plan to support single-parent families by tax-exempting alimony and not touching the family quotient. These are all measures that will make it possible to maintain a redistributive nature of family policy.
Agnes Evren is an LR MEP and spokesperson for Valérie Pécresse.
NO / “I prefer human accompaniment”
BY THOMAS MESNIER
What are parents telling us? It’s hard to be a parent. While the decline in the birth rate has been constant for ten years with a fertility rate of 1.82 in 2020, it is essential to carry out a proactive policy in this area. Valérie Pécresse proposes to establish an allowance of 900 euros per year from the first child for all, without condition of resources. If we share the idea of a strong family policy pursuing a pronatalist ambition, we differ on the way to carry it. France is the OECD country that devotes the greatest effort to family policy, at 3.6% of its GDP.
There are now many allowances, universal in their access but modulated in their amount, such as the childcare benefit: birth bonus (948 euros), basic allowance (up to 171 euros monthly), supplement childcare (up to 470 euros per month), etc. Under these conditions, I do not think that a new allowance is decisive in the desire for a child. Rather than new financial support, reductive for family policy and costly for our social finances, I prefer human support: the strategy for the first 1,000 days, the doubling of paternity leave, more crèche places and assistance for care for those who need it most. This is what constitutes an ambitious policy for parents, for equality between men and women, for our children, for society.
Thomas Mesnier is LREM deputy for Charente.