“We must invest to accelerate professional integration and inclusion,” argues the founder of Mozaik RH

Saïd Hammouche, professional integration specialist and founder of the Mozaik group, is the economic guest of franceinfo, Monday, on the eve of the opening of the Economic Forum of the Suburbs.

The event is billed as the “Davos of the suburbs”. FEconomic Forum of the Suburbs (FEB) is dedicated to the economic growth of the 1,506 Priority Neighborhoods of the City Policy (QPV). It will be held on September 17 and 18 at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) in Paris.

Saïd Hammouche, a specialist in professional integration and founder of the Mozaik group, which includes the Mozaik RH consultancy firm, will attend the event. He is the economic guest on franceinfo on Monday, September 16. He has been working on the subject of professional inclusion for over ten years and has been fighting against discrimination in hiring based on social, geographical or ethnic origin.

franceinfo: beyond the image, beyond marketing, what is the concrete purpose of this type of event?

Said Hammouche : First, it is an event to explain that this subject is, in fact, strategic for France. It is a subject in fact, which provides many answers to the fight against poverty, to the capacity to fight against unemployment, to the capacity to value merit. There is a part of the population today which is economically marginalized and which can get out of it precisely if they have access to work with equal skills, if they have access to the same financing tools when one is an entrepreneur. And these are levers on which we absolutely must invest in order to be able to also accelerate successes, accelerate dynamics of professional integration and inclusion.

This is a significant part of the population, 5 million people. What do the priority neighborhoods of the city seriously and urgently lack: private investment?

These are investments, but it is in fact, in a general way, an awareness of public and economic decision-makers on these issues and to lead them precisely to trust these entrepreneurs, to trust these new skills, since it is also a youth. There are more and more young graduates from these less privileged areas. These are the working-class neighborhoods, the suburbs, the rural areas. There is a dynamic today that is not connected with the economic world, because we need to have access to information, because, and paradoxically, there are professions that are in tension and that lack manpower and we need to create these connections. We need to create these meeting places to be able to install trust and ensure that there are more and more connections with the economic world.

Aziz Senni, who is behind this event, says that there are ideas, but that there is not enough private money to develop them. A lack of funding, is that one of the levers that must be activated today in the priority neighborhoods of the city in particular?

Absolutely. And then, we see it today with the Olympic Games, several thousand euros were invested to be able to make these Games. So we need service providers. At some point, we need suppliers. And why wouldn’t we also go and look for all these entrepreneurs who have a little less networks than the others, who are a little less connected with the economic world and who can also respond to the order.

“It is simply a matter of opening up the purchasing space a little more to other types, and not just to cronyism or traditional habits.”

Said Hammouche

to franceinfo

There are calls for tenders that exist.

There are calls for tender. You still have to be selected for these calls for tender.

But there are objective criteria for responding to a call for tenders.

I can tell you that, for years, as luck would have it, there were not enough women who were retained, as luck would have it, it was always the big ones and not the small ones. As luck would have it, it was always in mainland France and not enough in the provinces.

Does this mean that there is bias in tenders?

There are necessarily biases, there are necessarily network dynamics that are put in place. And we have the feeling that this is good for these companies, but in reality, these are also sources of deep dysfunctions that create poverty and economic marginalization.

In the dysfunctions, isn’t there also the idea that, in the 1500 priority neighborhoods of the city, you have to create your own job since no one gives you one and that’s why there are a lot of entrepreneurs?

You are right, while we have managed to reduce youth unemployment overall. We have an unemployment rate for these young people who live in the neighborhoods of the city policies, which remains quite high because we have not adapted the tools, because we do not have enough confidence in these populations and because at a given moment, there are also very simple issues which is to say we must go and meet them, we must go and talk to them, we must access information to be able to create this level of trust which is necessary today.

Isn’t it an admission of failure of the city’s policy that today there are so many entrepreneurs in the neighborhoods with less than 1% of entrepreneurs in the neighborhoods employing more than 50 people? Which shows that they are therefore essentially self-employed.

That’s very true. Indeed, from the moment we are not recruited, we will not remain in a situation of impoverishment and we will create our own job, we will create our own company, we will develop our own market.

“There are many entrepreneurs today who manage to break through and set up companies, but it is still less significant in terms of turnover.”

Said Hammouche

to franceinfo

But it allows you to live, it allows you to have your job, it allows you at a given moment to exist economically, to exist as a social position in society and that’s what counts. So we have today. That’s what we have to remember. A population that wants to be part of the dynamic of success, that wants to integrate and integrate economically.