- According to a study published in November 2019 and carried out by INSEE, one in five people in France is unable to communicate via the Internet.
- This digital divide and the difficulties encountered by these excluded people were exacerbated with the compulsory confinement of the population to fight against the coronavirus.
- But devices are multiplying to try to support the victims of this digital divide and remedy the lack of equipment for the most precarious.
There are the inequalities that can be seen, which have become glaring in this period of confinement, and the more pernicious ones which remain invisible. In France, 13 million people remain excluded from digital technology today. However, like access to decent housing or basic healthcare, access to the Internet has become a basic need for many. Forced to stay at home to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the French must now rely on the "all digital" for countless everyday steps.
So how do you keep in touch with your loved ones, schedule a remote consultation with your doctor or update your Pôle Emploi file when you don't have access to the Internet, via a computer or a smartphone ? To support and guide these victims of the digital divide, solidarity mechanisms have been put in place in recent days. A precious palliative which reveals, however, real training and investment needs at the time of dematerialization.
Exacerbated difficulties
“Digital is one of the only links that we can now have outside. It seemed urgent to us to find solutions so as not to leave thirteen million people excluded from the rest of the population, "explains Caroline Span, co-director of" MedNum ", a national cooperative of digital mediators. An emergency justified in particular by the precipitous closure of the reception and support places for the public deprived of Internet.
“There are usually twelve reception points in France, from Lille to Strasbourg via Bordeaux, Marseille or Grenoble. Last year, we supported almost 10,000 people across the country in precarious digital situations. So when the announcement of confinement fell, we immediately wondered how we were going to be able to carry out this work remotely, ”says Marie Cohen-Skalli, co-director of the Emmaüs Connect association. Without hardware or home connection, the difficulties encountered by those excluded from the digital world have increased in recent days. And the needs vary according to the audiences concerned.
“There are those who combine social and digital insecurity. Their isolation was reinforced with confinement. This is the case for the homeless, migrants, families experiencing poverty for example. There are also seniors who can no longer count on the visit of their loved ones and find themselves alone and finally the young people, directly affected by this problem with the implementation of dematerialized courses ”, continues Marie Cohen-Skalli. Without being able to be physically at their side, the players in digital mediation have therefore organized themselves to offer alternative support solutions.
A site, a phone number and top-ups
In less than two weeks, more than 1,700 digital mediators answered the call launched by "MedNum" and relayed by the State Secretariat for Digital. Objective: set up a site and launch a telephone line to guide French people who are disconnected in their administrative procedures, their access to rights, digital and information.
Open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., the dedicated number (01 70 772 372) received more than 4,000 calls in two days, specifies the cooperative behind the site. At 26, Fabien Devilliers, is a digital mediator in the Atlantic Pyrenees. An employee of the “Fiber 64” joint union and specialized in digital inclusion, the young man is one of the volunteers in charge of this telephone line. A natural approach, according to him: “With my employer, we considered that it was part of my mission and I do this in parallel with my work. You have to understand that in this context, without digital, people find themselves cut off from the world or without resources. "
The actors of digital mediation are launching a number to support citizens in difficulty with digital.
☎️ 01 70 772 372
➡️More info on: https://t.co/7l1pBoI3b3
Bravo to all the people mobilized for this platform to exist and work 👏 https://t.co/QXkKwie8da
To respond to the lack of equipment, Emmaüs Connect has managed to forge a partnership with the telephone operator SFR. "We were able to deliver 4,200 recharges remotely and free of charge with unlimited calls and SMS and 10GB of data," explains the co-director of the association. And two other major projects are under development. "One is aimed at people in precarious situations and aims to provide mobile phones and recharges, and the other concerns young people to equip them with tablets or laptops," adds Marie Cohen-Skalli.
The pitfall of dematerialization
If these devices make it possible to fill part of the void left by the closure of reception structures and digital training workshops, they also highlight many pitfalls. Like Fabien, Eric Durand, in charge of digital inclusion in Creuse, volunteers to manage the help number launched on March 30. He notes: “About 80% of the calls I have managed are requests for support and information in connection with administrative procedures. For example, a lady called to finalize a naturalization request, a gentleman wanted to send money to relatives who stayed abroad, another person needed to declare Pôle emploi and could not reach them. And the Family Allowance Fund is even sending some recipients to us now. ”
“So far, I have had very few requests related to digital difficulties. The vast majority of callers above all have very specific requests for information for administrative procedures. And we don't necessarily have the answers. So even if we provide listening, we realize above all that there is a lack of readability of the websites and digital services of public services, ”says Fabien Devilliers. While the government intends to dematerialize 100% of administrative procedures by 2022, this observation worries the young man: "We must give ourselves the means to develop sites understandable by all, ergonomic, adaptable to all types of screen and especially train people and employees of these public services. "
Our file on the coronavirus
Without wanting to “point the finger” at this or that administration, Eric Durand shares the analysis of his colleague: “Total dematerialization is very good, but we will have to mount a real Marshall plan to develop the digital skills of an entire population . Certainly, in this period of crisis, people are lost, they do not necessarily know how to do their procedures and they are afraid of doing wrong. But the difficulties of access are there. We still have a lot of work to do for digital inclusion and we will not be able to do it without the investment of all stakeholders. "
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