“Unemployment and instability make us feel vulnerable,” says Marion, a 23-year-old Master’s student of communications taking part in a youth debate on the main issues of the French presidential campaign. “Our generation has to cope with a health insurance deficit, and pay for our parents’ pensions, while spending half of our small salaries on rent. We’d be happy to reach our parents’ standard of living. No matter how qualified we are, we fear for the future.”
Like many young people in France, Marion has good reason to be worried. The biggest challenge facing her is that it now takes longer to find a proper job. In 1982, only 10 per cent of young people in France failed to find a steady job within three years of leaving education. In 2004, the figure stood at more than a quarter, and finding permanent work can take up to several years of internships and temporary contracts. Tired of working for little or no money, one group of disaffected interns has even formed a campaign group, Génération-Précaire (www.generation-precaire.org), to oppose what it sees as a latter-day form of slavery.
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