Discussion of France’s youth fluctuates between talk of threat and opportunity, fear and hope. Public policies reflect this ambivalence: the Conseil Interministériel de la Jeunesse (Interministerial Council for Youth) that François Hollande set up is still making do with general guidelines without the means to develop the projects on its agenda (1).
According to sociologist Chantal Guérin-Plantin (2), there are four reference models: fragile youth, messianic youth, dangerous and/or endangered youth and “citizen” youth. These models co-exist, and are capable of either amplifying or cancelling each other out.
Fragile youth, the first model, is seen as needing protection by a special justice system, as well as through press and entertainment censorship. This vulnerability can also be used to prevent minors from participating in civic life and denying them any autonomy. I attended a youth council steering committee meeting in a town in the Midi-Pyrénées region where the question of young people’s role on the committee arose. Representatives of those organisations present wanted to limit it on the grounds that the questions being discussed would be hard to understand. A researcher who was asked for an outside perspective expressed surprise that the issues were so secret or complex. He was told the young had to be “protected”, prompting him to ask whether the aim was for the young to be recipients or participants in the programme. It was eventually agreed that two carefully selected youth representatives could take part.
There are plenty of examples of adults taking control of initiatives aimed at minors and organising them according to their own vision of society. Young people’s responses are telling, and make their frustration plain: “We asked for the organisation of the council to change. We wanted something that was better suited to our circumstances. In the end, they told us that an already established way of working couldn’t be changed. And then they were surprised when we stopped coming.”
The second model, messianic youth, is seen as able to effect radical social transformation. Adults expect youth to bring about a revolution, at the same time fearing an attitude that is beyond their control. This idea underpinned ideologies and educational experiments in the 1960s and 70s. May 1968 and the Arab Spring are examples of this vision, though some adults believe that radical youth no longer exists. At a meeting in a small provincial town, for example, the official in charge of a youth mission argued that young people now expect assistance, and want activities and jobs to be laid on for them.
The third model, youth that is dangerous and in danger, is the one that is most discussed, even if it only represents a minority. Such a vision largely feeds electoral discourse, and makes security measures acceptable to politicians and the wider public. But there’s a questionable shift in meaning here: it used to be accepted that young people did stupid things, but this is now viewed as antisocial behaviour that deserves legal punishment. Society seems no longer to understand that young people need to experiment and experience a secondary phase of socialisation (3). Youth policy becomes youth policing. In this view, youth is no longer capable of experimenting and laying claim to ideas. It needs to be protected, and one group of the young may need to be protected against another. Consequently, in 2006, at the time of the demonstrations against the CPE (Contrat première embauche; a “first employment contract” with reduced rights and safeguards), some politicians in government circles accused young people of being manipulated by the unions, and considered them to be in danger. Youth here is both dangerous (by disturbing public order) and endangered.
The fourth model, that of “citizen” youth, comes from a faith in education and the transmission of principles that provide guidance to society. That is how youth councils were conceived. However, these bodies are too often no more than institutional talking shops. Young people are asked to meet, generally in commissions, to come up with suggestions. But their suggestions rarely alter the behaviour of municipal leaders. Some politicians who are aware of these problems appoint an organiser tasked with steering the process. Others turn these councils into consultative bodies whose proposals are worked on with local administrations. Young people are not unwilling to get involved, but motivating them depends on the chances of seeing their often concrete plans come to fruition (4).
The generation that is in charge seems reluctant to share its power. Social change works for those who are older and affluent; the young have trouble finding their place. Though it is absent from the public debate, a new intergenerational pact could lead to interactions that are mutually beneficial. But that presumes that institutions are ready to bring the young in from the cold (5) and that adults recognise the expertise and knowledge of the young and their potential value to society.
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