Reception manager for a caterer, Baudoin Desplanque-Lussert was forced to sell his house for economic reasons.
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H.Sergent / 20Minutes
Since the start of the epidemic, the coronavirus has abruptly halted the activity of entire sectors of the economy.
Some people have lost their purchasing power, their jobs or their hopes of finding a first contract.
20 Minutes
went to meet them.
Baudoin Desplanque-Lussert, head waiter and reception manager for a caterer specializing in events, was used to short contracts.
At 43, he has seen his unemployment rights melt away every month since he stopped working in March.
Passionate about his job but faced with an increasingly tense economic situation, the forty-something was forced to put his house up for sale.
“In summer, when you sit under the fig tree, it's magic.
This December morning, even if Baudoin Desplanque-Lussert's trees have lost their spring foliage, one can easily imagine strolling in the colorful garden that the butler took nearly ten years to create.
Sheltered in a quiet alley in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), his “little house” bought in 2009 has become, after extensive and long work, his “cocoon”.
At 43, after nine months of almost total inactivity, this reception manager for Curty's, a high-end Parisian caterer, had to make a decision that "tears his heart".
“My unemployment rights end on February 2 and I could no longer repay my mortgage.
I had no choice but to sell the house, ”he slips.
Like thousands of workers in the hotel, restaurant and event industry, Baudoin was hit hard by the economic consequences of the coronavirus epidemic.
A sudden fall for this "permittent" who has been evolving for 22 years in this sector.
Blossoming in a professional life with wide working hours but attached to the freedom offered by his independent status, this reception manager struggles to hide his anger and his fears.
Declining income
At the mention of his life before, Baudoin smiles.
Single and childless, the 40-year-old lives to the rhythm of the events he directs.
“Some periods were very calm and others very busy.
I used to work 70 hours a week and up to 250 hours a month, ”he describes.
If each caterer applies his own salary scale, he estimates that the average hourly rate fluctuates between 14 and 20 euros gross.
Its standard of living, at the time "comfortable", allows it to travel several times a year during its slack periods of activity.
"It's one of the things I miss the most," he says today.
In February 2020, a few weeks before the announcement of the first confinement, he distinguished the beginnings of the crisis: “We had cascading cancellations, then reductions in the number of participants or the budget.
And at the beginning of March, at the scale of my company, only two events were still maintained.
In his sector, butlers or reception managers like him are hired on the basis of customary fixed-term contracts.
Very short-term contracts which are linked, interspersed with periods of unemployment.
If his rights allow him to live properly, he knows it won't be for long.
All around him, precariousness hits some of his colleagues hard.
He explains: “We all started to consume our unemployment rights in a brutal way.
When you don't work for 30 days, which was the case in April and May, for example, and you are entitled to 180 days of unemployment in total during the year, things can go very quickly ”.
A feeling of "forgetting"
To this feeling of "violent" downgrading is also added the feeling of being "forgotten" by the public authorities.
Neither unionized nor politically committed, Baudoin quickly joined the Organization of Catering Staff in Events (OPRE), born out of the crisis.
“I always made sure to manage my budget, I've never been in need in 22 years, I've never needed anyone's help.
But today, it has become untenable for many of us, ”he explains.
The association knocks on the door of Muriel Pénicaud, then Minister of Labor, organizes demonstrations and alerts the media.
When the announcement of the extension of rights for intermittent workers came last May, Baudoin and his colleagues began to hope again.
But nothing comes.
Only a few weeks ago, Elisabeth Borne responded to calls for help from the profession.
The State has undertaken to pay temporary aid of 900 euros net per month to this category of workers already threatened by the reform of unemployment insurance.
Valid for four months, this aid is subject to two conditions: it is necessary to have worked at least 60% of the time last year and to justify today less than 900 euros of monthly resources.
With activity already reduced in 2019 because of the many demonstrations and transport strikes, Baudoin is not sure of being able to benefit from it.
Beyond the conditions of access to this aid, he denounces an insufficient amount: "When you find yourself with unemployment rights at 30 or 40 euros per day and you have two dependent children for example, with 900 euros per day. month, you do not get out of it!
".
No long-term vision
Looking towards his garden, the forty-something struggles to suppress his tears at the evocation of the coming months.
In March, Baudoin will leave his trees, his house and neighbors with whom he has befriended for an apartment in Vitry-sur-Seine.
Without income from February, he hopes to find a temporary job in large distribution or restaurants to meet his needs.
Because he knows it, the recovery will be long.
“We are totally dependent on the evolution of the situation at the national level as well as at the international level.
We thought we could bounce back in September and finally we find ourselves in the same slump as in March, ”he pleaded.
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Deprived of long-term vision, the head waiter has conceded a few "empty passages" in recent months.
In his entourage, some push him to consider a retraining.
But he refuses to accept it: “Some relatives ask me: 'Why don't you do something else?
»But because I love my job!
Even when I slept two hours a night, I would wake up happy.
I chose it because it gives me a feeling of freedom and because it offers dreams and joy.
"
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