Does 'insertion' work? France's minimum income"
Résumé
France's Revenu Minimum d Insertion (RMI) received the approval of the French Parliament on 1st December1988, and came into effect shortly afterwardsi. In addition to a means test, the RMI is conditional upon signature of a contract (le contrat d'insertion) by which its recipients pledge themselves to take whatever action the RMI authorities recommend in order to re-insert themselves in main-stream society. Insertion is a difficult concept to translate into English. For advocates of Citizen's Income (CI) the word integration, though often used in translations from French into English, is confusing, because Basic Income (which is a form of CI) involves integration of the tax and benefit systems. A fully integrated tax-benefit system would treat every citizen (taxpayers and beneficiaries) according to the same rules and regulations, which in the case of RMI recipients is clearly not the case. Since insertion is an English as well as a French word, and since in both languages it implies a degree of force or compulsion, that is the word used here. Revenu Minimum d'Insertion is therefore translated as Minimum Insertion Income.'Inserting' the poorest into mainstream society, as the author explains, is easier said than done. So the eventual effect, of the RMI may be to point France in the direction of a universal Citizen's Income based on legal residence.
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