Nicolas Duvoux, president of the National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty, warns of worsening poverty due to the 2026 budget project. In an interview with Le Monde, he expresses concern over the impact of freezing social benefits for precarious individuals. This follows a record increase in the poverty rate announced by Insee in July.
The National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion (CNLE), attached to Matignon, was tasked this summer by then-Prime Minister François Bayrou to consider a ten-year poverty reduction goal. However, with the 2026 budget project presented on October 14, 'poverty will mechanically worsen even more markedly,' warns Nicolas Duvoux, sociologist and president of the advisory body.
On July 7, Insee released worrying figures: 650,000 people fell into poverty in 2023, pushing the poverty rate to 15.4%, an unprecedented level in nearly thirty years of measurement. This affects nearly 9.8 million people in poverty. Asked about these figures, Duvoux states: 'We were not surprised by the trend. Indeed, monetary poverty has been increasing since the 2000s, whereas it had considerably decreased over fifty years, thanks to the rise of mandatory retirement systems. On the other hand, we did not expect such a spectacular increase between 2022 and 2023.'
He also notes surprise at the high level of the living conditions poverty rate, which measures material and social deprivations, steady since 2022. 'It is therefore not a one-year variation,' he clarifies. Duvoux warns against the freeze on social benefits, which will particularly affect the most precarious, and calls for a budget revision to counter this trend.