La France, un Etat providence (document en anglais)

II) France, a Providence State

The providence state is a state concept where it extends its intervention and regulation in the economic and social fields. It results in measures designed to redistribute money and to support various social risks such as sickness, old age, employment, family ... The providence state is based on solidarity between different social classes and the objective is to avoid the implosion of capitalism, by introducing a system of redistribution of money to the “poor people”.

Economists thinks that the providence state is an effective system for increasing incomes of poor people which automatically leads to increase the consumption and therefore demand, growth factor generating a virtuous circle.

1) Education

Since 1882, the school is public, secular and obligatory for children from 6 years old. Since 1969, it is obligatory until 16 years old.

The state gives money to local authorities to help about the payment and the management of school transportation, maintenance, equipment and construction of buildings. In this way, the municipality is responsible in primary schools; the Department is responsible in colleges and the region in secondary schools.

The State is responsible for the selection of teachers, their training and education programs.

Since 1881, the primary school is free, and since 1945, the college also.

Families who have not enough money receive a grant (8.14 billion euros in 2011 and 4,711 euros per person) and each year, all families receive an allowance to cover purchases related of equipment and clothing (2.8 million of families received this allowance in 2011, for a total cost of 1.49 billion euros)

All expenses towards education affect 6.9% of GDP which represent 137.4 billion euros (all players included). The share of salaries, pensions and costs is 72%, 9% about Investment and 19% about other operating expenses.

The cost per student is around 7640 euros.

In the European Union, 79.5% of young people between 20 and 24 years old have successfully past the secondary education, they are 83.8 % in France.

In the European Union, 13.5% of young people between 18 and 24 years old don’t continue the training; they are 12% in France.

In 2011, 34% of young people who left the education system from 1 to 4 years, without diploma are unemployed. This proportion is around 20% for people with an intermediate level and 9% for those with a higher education degree.

Unemployment for young people became a real problem and an important political subject, especially since the economic crisis.

Unemployment represents 9.7% of the active population in France and 22.7% of people between 15 and 24 year olds. Each year, the aid and various allowances to compensate people without jobs are approximately equal to 28 billion.

The reality is that the demand is higher than supply and companies have a tendency to employ more people with higher education for lower responsibility jobs (although career is more interesting and fast for this class of graduates)

2) Health

The

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