Universal national service: Sarah El Haïry does not rule out making it mandatory

Gauthier Delomez, with AFP 21:56 p.m., March 15, 2023

"We need young people to meet, they need to do together, they need to better understand the France," argues Sarah El Haïry in Europe 1 Midi. At the microphone of Romain Desarbres, the Secretary of State for Youth and Universal National Service has just returned to the SNU, this program for 15-17 year olds on which she has been working for several months. While, according to a recent poll, a majority of French people are in favor of making it mandatory, Sarah El Haïry does not exclude this possibility.

The government's two hypotheses

The Secretary of State intends to "generalize" this program, as President Emmanuel Macron wishes, relying on the armed forces and the National Education. "Generalizing it means either making it (compulsory) in the school career for all young people (...) or to do it on the time of the school holidays, the voluntary time, and to allow them to go and get something they can not find anywhere else, "says the deputy of Loire-Atlantique.

Sarah El Hairy also considers that this SNU "is neither the military service of the time, nor the summer camp". However, a Senate report recommended Friday, March 10 to "postpone the generalization" of the universal national service "in view of the uncertainties" of the project, especially in terms of costs, "probably greater than 2 billion euros".

Estimated costs between 2.4 and 3.1 billion euros per year

According to this report by Socialist Senator Eric Jeansannetas, presented Wednesday to the Senate Finance Committee, "the project of generalization of the Universal National Service" is now "declined in two scenarios", a generalization "outside school time", and one "on school time, which "has the preference of the Secretary of State" in charge of youth and the SNU, Sarah El Haïry, but "neither of the two scenarios" studied by the government "is fully satisfactory".

He stresses that "whatever the scenario chosen", the generalization of the SNU "would pose major difficulties in terms of accommodation, supervision and cost". The rapporteur lists in particular the need to have "a real staff recruitment strategy" which "does not exist today", and to create a "channel" of supervision of the cohesion stay, "which requires several years to be built".

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The senator also estimates that the costs of the SNU would be "probably more than 2 billion euros" and thinks that it will cost rather "2.4 to 3.1 billion euros per year", as mentioned in a report of the general inspections of 2018.