Contenu du sommaire : Politiques locales de jeunesse

Evolution of youth local policies
The purpose of this paper is to propose a synthesis of the changes which have affected the youth public policies for a decade. In this aim, this paper focuses on the changes that concern, on the one hand, the public issues defined by the local policies, and on the other hand, the levels of intervention of the mentionned policies. Youth policies are considered as being part of a process of increasing complexity, of transversalisation of the public action with the disengagement of the State in the background Proceeding this way, we try to reconsider the general hypothesis structuring this paper : Are the evolutions as regards youth local policies going in the direction of a development of territorial policies ?

Youth local policies and territorialisation of public action
Based on works carried out by the State Planning Commission on young people, the author, starting from the local dynamics, analyses the public action in direction of young adults at the time of their entry in economical, social and political responsabilities. In a cognitive perspective, youth representations are alternately analysed through the policies, the implementation of concepts of territories and their interweaving. The analysis questions the process of territorialisation which could lead to an intensification of the competition between the different levels of public intervention. A repositioning of each one becomes necessary with the Region which could be a relevant step of political mediation.

Youth territorial policies and transversality
Initiated by the State, the contractualisation and territorialisation of public action towards young people have had an impact on the elaboration of youth policies and have given rise to the emergence of new institutional, professional and political actors. The transversality of public action is therefore at the heart of a reconstruction which draws a new distribution of the powers between the State and its representatives, the local counsillors and their technicians, the associative sphere with the militants and professionnals.

Youth policies : universality, targeting or « affirmative action » ?
The author analyses the increase of targeting measures particularly towards young people in order to compensate the inadequacy of the common law policies. Referring to precise examples showing the uncertainty of the objectives, means and results of the measures, the author pleads for their more consistent registration within the common law policies. A real « positive discrimination » should allow the users to appropriate the common law policies, to become the actors and to be considered more like a local resource rather than like a deficient population

To bet on young people's social skills
To bet on young people's social skills is to give them the chances of a simultaneous development of their individual identity and social development. That requires for the adult world to endeavour to know and recognize the young people's social competences that can be applied in the life plans they build. Young people use their skills naturally in three fields, for their close relations, for the established social organisation and for their close social environment. This bet supposes also to give up the current logic of construction of projects centered on the gap and to develop a suited methodology to make use of these social skills in the construction of projects on a given territory.

Trade-union commitment of young employees
This paper based on a survey carried out among employees of the great trade in Paris deals with the relation to trade-unionism and forms of activism through a generational perspective. Few are trade-unionists, exposed to little qualified jobs, this professionnal sector becomes sometimes the theatre of mobilizations. Recent social movements and the appearance of new militant networks show at the same time the development of social protest and the will that the labour rights cover this sector more widely. In this type of company, the expansion of graduate salaried, according to the massification of education, to strong unemployment rates, and to the elevation of levels of recruitment, shows the possibility for changes concerning the available resources for collective action and the development of trade-unionism.

Recourse to social assistance : a risk ?
Since the mid 90's, in Quebec, there has been a change of paradigm in the treatment of young people receiving social assistance in a context of social expenditures « hunting ». Based on the model of the rational actor, the preventive measures consider that the request for assistance is a « at-risk behaviour »having to be treated like that. This way, the preventive policies mainly implemented for young people appear registered in a rationality of responsability resting on two cardinal moral virtues : prudence and foresight. At the same time, they lead us to reconsider the right to social assistance in view of effectiveness.