This is one of the side effects of the coronavirus health crisis: the use of food aid jumped last year in France.
According to the latest figures published by INSEE, the number of beneficiaries increased by more than 7% in 2020 compared to 2019.
The Restos du cœur, the French Red Cross, but also solidarity grocery stores ... All the associations make the same observation: the number of beneficiaries increased sharply last year. Consequences of the coronavirus health crisis, more and more French people are turning to associations, which provide food aid to get by. This phenomenon is also evident in the latest figures published by INSEE on Tuesday.
Queues grew in front of food aid distribution points.
According to the latest study published by INSEE, the volume of aid distributed by associations jumped by more than 10% last year compared to 2019. The most worrying remains the number of new registrants: they were 7.3 % more in 2020. Usually the number of registrations increases by 2% to 3% each year.
Students, temporary workers and seasonal workers
The profiles of applicants are very different.
They are made up of "people who were in the breach and who have fallen into precariousness", notes Guillaume Guitton, of the French Red Cross.
"We mainly find students, temporary workers, seasonal workers, so-called 'poor' workers," he says.
For Guillaume Guitton, "the crisis has exacerbated trends that we were already observing". In particular, an increase in the needs of beneficiaries in the second half of 2020, a sign of harsher precariousness, but also more established. Associations fear that this upward trend will continue in 2021, also marked by the Covid.