“Being silenced is very hard,” says Elisabeth, unemployed guide-lecturer

She takes out her little diary and flips through it. The pages are like new. This is normal, Elisabeth has not used it much in recent months. She scours the weeks with her finger, stops on a date, February 26: “it was my last contract”. An “inspection”, as we say in the jargon of the guide-lecturers, the job of Elisabeth Guillerm. That day, she had crisscrossed Paris to prepare for a future visit with a client, an event agency. The Musée d’Orsay, Ile de la Cité, the Montorgueil district. That was before, before the coronavirus crept into every life and deprived Elisabeth of her job, for the first time since the start of her career, which began in 1984.

Containment, deconfinement, summer, re-entry, curfew, re-containment: eight months have passed, and Elisabeth’s agenda has remained hopelessly empty. Seated in the kitchen of her apartment, she explains: “Since my last mission, I have no more income. I am not even entitled to RSA because my husband, who is intermittent, has an income that very little exceeds the required threshold ”. The guide does not have unemployment benefits either: the reform adopted in 2019 now requires six months of work over two years (compared to four months previously) to claim compensation. The measure was indeed suspended in August, but too late for Elizabeth to benefit from it.

“I try to tell myself that I am very lucky”

She is not the only one in this case. Out of 10,000 guide-lecturers identified in France, a small half (around 4,000) usually has some sort of customary fixed-term contract (CDDU), with an average income close to the minimum wage. Moreover, no longer being able to claim the status of intermittent – to whom Emmanuel Macron has granted a “white year”, without loss of rights – guides like Elisabeth are numerous to have been deprived of resources at the time of confinement. Indeed, only those who have the status of auto-entrepreneur were able to benefit from the emergency aid put in place by the government.

Elisabeth found herself confronted with this reality during Heritage Day at the end of September. When she sees her colleagues again to prepare a demonstration in the capital, she is in shock: “Some told me that they ate thanks to the food stamps, others that they no longer knew what to do with their rent… “. She sighs. “I’m really trying to tell myself that I’m very lucky. I have a roof, I have enough to eat ”.

Farewell to books

However, her life has changed a lot since March. “From the first confinement, we canceled all our subscriptions, magazines and TV channels. We go to the basics: pay the charges for the apartment, and eat ”. With an amused air, she shows her impeccably groomed hair: “I can no longer afford to go to the hairdresser, so I assume my white hair”. In reality, all of that doesn’t really bother her.

The lack of new books, on the other hand, is harder to live with. Elisabeth hasn’t bought any in the past eight months to save money. She has even started sorting to sell some, and has already filled two large shopping bags that are waiting in her living room. “It’s to have a little cash and not tell myself that I am entirely dependent on my husband”. A heartbreak for her, who used to prepare for her visits by spending hours and hours immersed in books.

The weight of silence

As appointments disappeared from her agenda, Elisabeth had to innovate so as not to go around in circles all day. “During the first confinement, I was preparing fictitious visits. And before the October reconfinement, I wandered around Paris imagining circuits for future tourists. I also went back to museums, but without a group, it’s sad ”. The guide talks a lot, and it is no coincidence: “I did not do this job to earn money, but for meetings and human experience. To be silenced is very hard ”.

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So she prefers to project herself, so as not to get stuck in this so distressing present which puts “a weight on her feet”: “We are seriously considering selling the apartment that we have just paid off. If the money doesn’t come in, we’ll have to leave Paris. Either way, I can’t just sit there and do nothing. I’m starting to consider going back to work just to see the world, but you have to be realistic: at 59, I don’t make it to the top of the list in recruitments. “