Charity sounds alarm on poverty risk for one in five French people

Nearly one in five French people are living in debt, a survey published Wednesday by the charity Secours Populaire has found – warning that hunger is becoming “a major issue”.

A woman shops in a supermarket in Toulouse, southwestern France on September 4, 2023. AFP - CHARLY TRIBALLEAU

In its annual assessment that coincides with the launch of a so-called “Poverty Precarity” campaign, Secours Populaire said the bank accounts of 18 percent of French people were in arrears.

While credit cards are uncommon in France, most banks offer authorised overdraft facilities that allow accounts to have a negative balance without incurring fees.

Soaring costs

A growing number of people are experiencing difficulties paying for food and energy costs, as well as certain medical procedures that are poorly reimbursed by social security, Secours Populaire said.

Almost two-thirds of households with a net monthly income of less than 1,200 euros were in difficulty.

“The financial situation of French people has continued to worsen this year,” Secours Populaire said of this year’s survey, which was produced by pollster Ipsos.

A third of respondents said their income allowed them to make ends meet only, while 58 percent said they had, at some point, felt they were on the verge of poverty.

Hunger urgency

Faced with galloping inflation, 94 percent of French people said they looked for discounts and promotions while shopping for groceries.

Seventy-two percent of people said they no longer bought meat, while more than half no longer eat three meals a day.

“The issue of hunger is once again intervening in the daily lives of millions of French families,” Secours Populaire general secretary Henriette Steinberg told FranceInfo, adding that the poverty risk was “a matter of urgency”.

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The warning by Secours Populaire comes after a major food aid charity, Restos du Coeur, said providing help to people in need was become increasingly unmanageable.

The charity, which is funded by donations as well as money from the French state and European Union, calculates it needs an extra €35 million on top of its current annual budget of €200 million to avoid going into the red this year.

Between 2 million and 4 million people in France are thought to depend on some form of food aid, a number that has climbed with each crisis of the past 15 years – first the 2008 banking collapse, then Covid-19, now inflation.