INTERVIEW. Crèches, birth leave, ultraviolence, danger of screens, politics, PMA… Sarah El Haïry speaks to Midi Libre

La ministre des familles, en déplacement dans l’Hérault, a accordé un long entretien à Midi Libre. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

Visiting Hérault this Thursday, April 11 to present the colo pass, Minister for Families Sarah El Haïry gave a long interview to Midi Libre.

Nursery, birth leave:
"a historic meeting"

"If school is the mother of battles, early childhood is their grandmother, as one can accumulate the inequalities between 0 and 3 years old. However, the minister can only admit it: with four out of ten children under 3 years old who cannot be accommodated in a childcare structure and while 300,000 childminders will leave for retirement by 2030 "when 200 000 are already missing", major projects are open.

"We have therefore launched the public early childhood service which will give town halls, from January 1, 2025, the capacity to be the organizing authority for the reception of young children, an issue on which the State will be there with a historic investment of 6 billion d’ euros", recalls Sarah El Haïry.

She adds: "But it’s not just a question of space, we also need to make daycare and childminder jobs more attractive. One of my first decisions was to increase salaries with an envelope of 250M€, or 150€. net on average. We are also going to change the way we look at these professions with an information campaign to show that it is not just about changing diapers but it is also and above all participating in the awakening of awareness. rsquo;child.

I again launched a large national control operation, in the private sector – to avoid a “Orpea of ​​crèches” – but also in the associative and the public, because status does not make virtue. To protect what is most precious to us, but also because if working conditions are not good, professionals leave. We must also be able to create gateways".

“To allow parents to have the freedom to choose their childcare method, from next year, we are going to align the rest of the costs, so that there is no longer any difference between crèche and childminders” Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

Approximately 60% of children are not looked after in collectives, the minister also says she is working on the development of family nurseries and childminder homes through assistance with their financing. "We will also secure their income by securing up to three months of salary in the event of unpayment from one of the employers. And to allow parents to have the freedom to choose their childcare method, from next year, we are going to align the remainder to be paid, so that there are no more difference between crèche and childminders", continues the minister.

These decisions are in line with the demographic rearmament desired by the President of the Republic, since "the difficulty of childcare is the first obstacle ".

Another tool, birth leave, "a new historic right, to give the couple the freedom to take time off for the first months of his children". "Several hundred million euros" will be devoted to it, even if the terms of time, sharing and compensation are still under discussion.

"It will be proportional to salary", specifies Ms. El Haïry, recalling that parental leave which goes until the child is 3 years old, "with 448 € per month" no longer appeals to parents – there are 250,000 per year, compared to 500,000 in the past. "But we will give freedom of choice".

For parental leave, the minister calls on companies "to be there and take their part to allow employees to keep 100% of their income. It is time to change our outlook, to implement family policies within companies themselves and not just large groups."

The Samara affair, violence and harassment.

Sarah El Haïry reacts to the Samara affair, this Montpellier teenager beaten up near her college and more generally on the issue of violence and harassment in schools.

"I think of this young girl who ended up in the hospital, I hope that’ rsquo;she is recovering. It is necessary to face what is happening in our youth: yes, there is an increase in violence. It takes several forms and it is accentuated by the impact of social networks, the digital world and the real world merge, this violence is linked and leads to each other. We got very firm responses.

We cannot go into the particular case of Samara because there are legal proceedings in progress, but the inspectors, mandated by the Minister of National Education, came immediately, the courts were seized, there There were indictments and the removal of the three people pronounced, including from the school so that the start of the school year would be as peaceful as possible.

What is new is the massive and immediate response. There is no longer any vagueness. We have no taboo, school bullying is a scourge. We also need to support parents so that they can detect what is happening to their children, because speaking is sometimes not easy at home. When, unfortunately, there is no parental control on the phone, when we do not know that they are on this or that application, we are not aware of what could be happening. go outside the school.

“The State is strong and firm alongside parents who wish it” Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

Isn't this a sign of a decline in authority ? &quot ;Authority is challenged everywhere, including at home. The State is strong and firm alongside parents who wish it. She is being pushed around everywhere because there are two magnets in our society: a Republican, who wants to emancipate herself through work. The other is the counter-models, idleness is the mother of all vices: these young people do nothing and there are drug trafficking networks and then sometimes a radicalization, radical political Islamism tries to take our kids on board. The more the Republic is present, the stronger our model will be."

But shouldn't we punish the parents of the children involved in the violence ? "But that’s already the case. We have the impression that when a young person does something stupid, because he is a minor, he has immunity and so do his parents. Not at all, justice can seek the civil liability of the parents. And those who are no longer there, for example fathers who are no longer in the landscape, we will be able to remind them of their responsibilities.

When it comes to young people, we will see to what extent we need to take stronger, even firmer, educational measures. I strongly believe in boarding schools. Because there is no remaining liability, we put the money on the table to ensure that the cost is not a barrier for families. Furthermore, the question of the financial sanction of the young person himself will have to be asked. I know it works, I'm thinking in particular of urban rodeos, you grab the vehicle, the motorcycle, you tap your wallet and it works. But it's up to the judge to decide."

His homosexuality, his PMA, "a beautiful law of equality and the GPA

French Prime Minister in office to have revealed her homosexuality Sarah El Haïry also admitted to having had a child through PMA (medically assisted procreation). A decision for which she was criticized but which she does not regret. "I have been involved in politics since the age of 18, I had always thought that it was necessary to keep my private life far from my public life. I spoke about my personal situation quite late because I still see, in our country, young people who are dying to keep silent.

Families still reject their children when they learn that they are homosexual. It’s evolving but it can still be very violent. By becoming a mother, I did not want it to become a subject of incomprehension or rejection for my daughter when she went to school.

I come from a Moroccan family where the subject is perhaps even more taboo than elsewhere but I needed to tell them that I loved a woman and that I was going to have a child with her."

The minister benefited from a PMA, the law relating to bioethics having extended it to all women in 2021. "It’s a law of equality. PMA is hard, it doesn't work the first time, it's a very difficult journey with, when it works, wonderful happiness at the end.

Before the law existed, the checkbook made the difference. You had to have the means to go abroad. By remaining in France, women were forced to lie, to present themselves with a companion who was not. Above all, this law allows you not to have to adopt your own child. Here again, the procedures were long, complicated and painful."

However, the minister recognizes that there is still a way to go, "we need to be able to better distribute the gametes between territories to fight against inequalities, egg conservation must also be improved and, once again, companies must be convinced to support their employees when they begin this process."

Regarding GPA (surrogacy), it remains pending. "I don’I don’a law will arrive immediately, but it is absolutely necessary to protect and support children who are born through surrogacy. I know some and they are doing very well. The debate must be posed but without the slightest manipulation."

Children and screens: "The challenge of the century"

Between the ages of 12 and 17, one in four adolescents spends from 22 to 35 hours on a screen during the week. Should we regulate teenagers' access to Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok… ?"The experts charged by Emmanuel Macron with making proposals on the use of screens will submit their report in a month, at the end of April, beginning of May. I usually do not predict what will be announced, but I can tell you that the question of screens is today one of the challenges of the century.

Among those aged zero to three, we could fear an almost health tragedy. Screens cause developmental delay, impact learning abilities, and are involved in autism spectrum disorders…

It's also difficult when you have siblings: how do you choose the right content, allow one and not the other? When do you allow -we telephone, when entering 6th grade ? What attitude should we adopt with teenagers ? At home, the subject is Fortnite, video games , and the risks that the screen poses to sleep, obesity, violence, concentration…

I think the time has come to give tools. A major information campaign for parents is necessary. But I don't blame parents because I know how difficult it is, and you shouldn't make a parent feel guilty either because they put Tchoupi on the phone to their kid on a train . There are parents who know that it is not very good but who do not know the alternatives. I want to take the blame out of them, everyone does what they can. We haven't asked enough the question of “What do I do instead ?"< /p>

“We must not be in the injunction, parents have a lot of them”. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

Supporting parents in using screens also means telling them “We didn’wait to act”. Since 2017, a law has been passed to make parental control on cell phones mandatory. Except that when you're a parent and you don't know how to activate it, it's difficult.

We also informed the platforms of their responsibility on the issue of the digital majority of children. These are legal tools. How do we now transform this operationally in real life ? How to activate parental controls ? Find alternatives to the use of screens which can be sport, shared content, positive content… ? Do not demonize but regulate, content and use ?"

Should we invent a digital highway code? "Yes", replies the minister. "You need to learn. For that, you don't have to be in the injunction, parents have a lot of them. We still need to provide training because there are parents who don't know how potentially dramatic it is. Whatever our social class, whatever the composition of our family, we can all need help with the issue of screens.

One in two parents say today that they are worried, faced with the consequences of cyberbullying, on tools that they do not know how to use, and that they are overwhelmed. There is no injunction from the State, there is support and training. I am, for example, extremely in favor of the digital break at school. Placing the phone in a locker at the entrance to an establishment and retrieving it upon exit is an excellent measure."

"In Occitanie, the Sommières high school is experimenting with a disconnected break. High school students leave the phone in a locker. We supplemented this with the purchase of games, and the effect on the school climate is clear, indicates rector Sophie Béjean. "I am extremely supportive "  specifies Sarah El Haïry. "School is a sanctuary. We must exclude everything that causes trouble. And today, unfortunately, the telephone brings trouble.

 

The Colo Pass accessible to 80% of families

It was in La Grande-Motte that the Minister responsible for Children, Youth and Families, Sarah El Haïry, came to present the Pass Colo, a new system for children aged 11, which allows you to finance a large part of a stay at a summer camp. "It’is 200 to 350 €, on an average cost of 500& ;nbsp;€. This right is accessible to 80% of families, depending on the parents' income. It is the promise of building common memories, of giving a taste for nature, of doing, of the curiosity of others, summarizes the minister. Who even wants to do “colo” the first stage of a journey of commitment, which would then pass through "the SNU, civic service" and thus "rebuilding cohesion in a fractured generation " L’ opportunity, for Midi Libre, to discuss with her numerous files for which she is responsible.

Child and adolescent mental health:
"To be happy, you need social connections"

Studies follow one another on the state of mental health of children, one in seven adolescents is at serious risk of depression according to Public Health France, girls are doing less well than boys boys… While Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has just refined the system “My psychological support”, launched in February 2022, is it enough to go see a shrink to get better ? No", answers Sarah El Haïry.

Today’s pre-adolescents and adolescents have experienced Covid, they live with information in continuous, with the arrival of digital technology at crazy power at a time when we don't know very well how to support and regulate it… hellip; Our teenagers live in a period where there is a lot of anxiety and lots of new challenges. To answer that, 100% medicalization is not the answer. But you have to be up to it. that's why we did “My psychological support”, that we accepted seeing that it wasn't working very well and that we increased the reimbursement, as the need for a prescription has been removed…

We have broken the taboo of mental health. Not everything is medical. The taste of the collective has changed. Commitment to the association is shaken. To be happy you need to have social connections, passions, you need to have self-confidence. All this is built from a very young age. This is why we are bringing back the discovery classes and snow classes for the little ones, the camp pass in the year of 11 years, the universal national service, the support of young firefighters, the civic service… each of our children has a place, we need them not in front of a screen but in society. And the financial question does not& rsquo;is not a brake.

On the subject of sexual violence against children
and the Civilization

Sexual violence against children: "La Civiise, the independent commission on incest and sexual violence against children, was succeeding in breaking this taboo of sexual violence within the family. Suddenly, everything stopped. For a problem of governance, because of internal wars…

“Why are our children doing so badly ? Because we have a difficult world” Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

My dream is to prevent this sexual violence which affects one in ten children in all environments. I don't want us to be condemned to supporting the victims. We can prevent this violence, change the law, deploy Uapeds throughout the territory, these units which take care of victims in hospital, better train child psychiatrists, support teachers who are often destitute, train children to say "this is not normal"… 80% of complaints are unsuccessful.

Child protection has information, the children's judge has information, the specialized educator or social worker has a bit of information… hellip; but they don't talk to each other. It’s discouraging. I want to create a shield around the children.

On single parenthood

"We secured alimony by deciding to engage in intermediation < em>financial, it is Caf which now pays them. There, we are making another necessary reform: that of supplementary childcare, with the idea of ​​extending it to single-parent families until 12 years old. The child is not looking after himself, allowing this additional help is allow mothers to have less mental burden. Today it is also workshops and parenting support which are particularly useful to them and we finance it with the Caf.< /em>

Par elsewhere, a mission desired by the Prime Minister was launched on the issue single parenthood, on access to housing or work: today, 160,000 women do not< /em> do not return to their jobs because they have no means of childcare. Finally, the question of the card for single-parent families also arises: I am not closed to anything as long as it is useful and operational.&quot ;

On politics

Minister wearing a triple hat, Sarah El Haïry did not hesitate when we asked her if she feared budgetary decisions to her disadvantage, for reasons of compulsory savings due to the public deficit. ;: "I am almost the best enemy of the budget deficit. Because this deficit is the legacy of our children. And my mission is to protect our children, our grandchildren. However, everything that we do not do today, we will give them as an inheritance. And if we want to give them the chance to have a more or less sovereign country, to not have to undergo heavy tax increases and to have a little freedom, that’s it’s up to us to do the job. It’s hard. But it’s being responsible to make these savings.

And there are no fantasies to have, it will not be done blindly, there are priorities: school and health, which together are the mother of battles, and, in fact, the grandmother of all battles, early childhood, where so much is at stake for later growing up well. Money is scarce, so it has to be effective. And I'm not afraid to save money, of course it's necessary, but like we do in everyday life."

And the Minister to assure: "I took away one hundred million euros from the civic service, it will not affect any young person, nor the number of missions, nor their duration, nor the compensation for young people. Because these hundred million would be in the treasury of the civic service agency, and it was the overflow from the recovery plan, where we had been very generous.

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