Nursery places, increased care… How Bourne wants to make childcare easier

It will soon be easier to take care of your children. In any case, this is what Elisabeth Bourne assures, who will present her early childhood plan in Angers (Maine-et-Loire) on Thursday. Anticipating the presentation to the Council of Ministers next week of a bill to reorganize the public employment service, the Prime Minister, in particular, will detail the financing of 200,000 new childcare places envisaged by 2030, despite the shortage of staff in this sector.

Childcare “is one of the biggest barriers, along with mobility, to accessing employment. When a couple has a child, often the woman leaves the labor market,” said Elisabeth Born in an interview with Ouest-France, published on the Internet on Wednesday evening. This is “a very important issue of equal opportunities, but also a huge issue of gender equality,” the prime minister assures.

As such, Elizabeth Bourne must detail funding for 100,000 additional nursery places by 2027 with a goal of reaching 200,000 new places by 2030 (which the Prime Minister promised in July 2022). Thus, 5.5 billion euros will be mobilized in 2023-2027. There are currently 458,000 nursery places for young children and 770,000 babysitting places.

Reception Improvement Plan

Following a disturbing Igas (General Inspectorate for Social Affairs) report released in April calling for far-reaching reforms in the sector to better prevent abuse, the prime minister will also discuss measures that could improve reception quality. as a “report escalation and tracking” system or additional controls. Thus, permission to establish a nursery would be “limited to ten years with a systematic intervening meeting,” explains Elizabeth Bourne.

In addition to the crèches, the €70 million Innovation Fund will develop “adapted” childcare practices for people in distress. “We are going to increase CAF help for hiring a nanny so that this decision does not cost more than a nursery,” also announces Elisabeth Bourne in Ouest-France, recalling the increase in the maximum credit tax on childcare costs.

The government estimates that 49% of nurseries lack specialists. Therefore, it will also be a question of means of removing the unattractiveness of these professions, which Igas says is “an aggravating factor as well as a symptom” of the difficulty in receiving children well.