The plight of the able-bodied poor and the unemployed in urban France, 1880-1914

In the period 1880-1914, France pioneered social-welfare programmes for som e categories of the population, but was decades behind some European nation s in other areas. The image of France as a social-policy laggard is accurat e when on considers its record of dealing with the unemployed, the labourin g poor and rural migrants to cities. Hand in hand with the tendency for Fra nce as a whole to spend more on public assistance as the century ran its co urse was a tendency to assist in a different manner, and to limit the fruit s of this expansion to certain segments of the population-women, children a nd the elderly. Increased assistance for some was matched by an increasingl y repressive attitude (and actions) towards others. If the period 1890-1914 witnessed the introduction of important social reforms, it also witnessed one of the most repressive policing campaigns in the history of modern Fran ce. Vagabonds were banished to colonial prisons, and outdoor relief systems were scaled back in several cities. An important counter-current to republ ican 'solidarity' was flourishing at the same time and it should be conside red as a serious counterweight, or at least backdrop, to the social reform movement of the time, for it set limits on what was possible.