SANS-LE-SOU At the top of this sad podium of Ile-de-France cities with the highest poverty rate, Grigny in Essonne and Clichy-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis
Grigny (Essonne), where the Grande-Borne district is located, makes one of the poorest towns in Île-de-France. — Samir Benderradji
- The Observatory of Inequalities is releasing its report on poverty in France on Tuesday, December 6.
- 20 Minutes has extracted from this reports the data for Ile-de-France, the region which concentrates a fifth of the poor in France and where there are the most poor.
- The cities which concentrate the highest rate of poverty are Grigny in Essonne and Clichy-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis, with respectively 44% and 42% of poor people.
It’s in Ile-de-France where there are the most poor, according to the 2022 edition of the Poverty Observatory report. But where? are these 1.2 million poor? 20 Minutes invites you to discover the ranking of cities with 20,000 inhabitants that have the highest poverty rates, by department (see end of article).
Good to know first: the level of poverty is defined here at 60% of the median standard of living, at i.e. 60% of 1,880 euros (1,880 being the median because half the population lives on less than this income). Either a level of poverty of 1,128 euros per month. Which therefore means that Melun, where there is a poverty rate; by 25%, a quarter of the population lives on less than 1,128 euros per month.
Grigny and Clichy-sous-Bois, “champions” from Ile-de-France
Unsurprisingly, it’s in Seine-Saint-Denis where we find the cities with the highest rates of poverty. With 283,000 inhabitants living on less than 940 euros per month (for the departments, the report uses a poverty line this time at 50% of the median standard of living), it’s the department of France with the largest number of poor people. Of the 20 municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants in France where the poverty rate is the highest, six are located in Seine-Saint-Denis. In Clichy-sous-Bois, for example, the median standard of living is 1,200 euros, and the poorest 10% are content with 679 euros per month.
“Seine-Saint-Denis is an extraordinary department from this point of view, poverty is very extensive, and at only a few kilometers from the beautiful districts of Paris or the Hauts-de-Seine. We have there; the quintessence of territorial inequalities,” comments to 20 Minutes Anne Brunner, one of the directors of the report, with Louis Maurin.
When poverty rhymes with dynamism
If we consider the number of poor people rather than the poverty rate, it’s in the capital that we find the greatest number of people who live on less than 1,128 euros per month, specifies The report. That is ultimately 307,000 people out of a population of 2.2 million. Difficult, especially when you know the price of rents!
Note that the poverty rate is not necessarily the sign of a carelessness on the part of the local public authorities. “The poverty rate can be a sign of dynamism, for example at Paris. Because the city offers a lot of jobs, and you can leave your country or the region to go to Paris”, reports Anne Brunner.
Grigny, another example, continues to be cited as one of the poorest towns in France, because it has a very large number of social housing units, according to Anne Brunner. Its population does not stagnate in poverty, it is replaced by new ones who benefit from these opportunities.
Pockets of poverty
Finally, looking at the ranking at an even closer level, that of the arrondissements or neighborhoods, we can find cities that have an overall poverty rate relatively small but pockets of poverty important. This is the case at Paris, where this rate is 15% on average, but where? it culminates at; 48% in certain districts, such as Folie-Méricourt, in the 11th.
If we scrutinize the magnifying glass all of Ile-de-France, it’s up to you Argenteuil and Bezons in the Val-d’Oise that we find the neighborhoods with the highest poverty rate the highest of the region, precisely at Justice-Butte Blanche, which is one of the 1,500 “priority neighborhoods of the city” what counts in France, as the administration calls it, these neighborhoods with low-income populations. It concentrates nearly 65% of the poor.
Contrary to the image of “cities” that we sometimes have when we think of the less fortunate places, the poorest districts of France are not located in Ile-de-France but… in the South, especially in Nice, Carpentras, Nîmes and especially Perpignan.
The 5 cities of Seine-Saint-Denis with the highest poverty rate:
Clichy-sous-Bois: 42%
Aubervilliers : 41 %
La Courneuve : 41 %
Pierrefitte-sur-Seine : 39 %
Saint-Denis : 37 %
The 5 towns of Val-de-Marne with the highest poverty rate:
Villeneuve-Saint-Georges : 34 %
Ivry-sur-Seine : 27 %
Vitry-sur-Seine : 24 %
Orly: 23%
Choisy-le-Roi: 22%
The five towns in Hauts-de-Seine with the highest poverty rate:
Gennevilliers: 27%
Villeneuve-la-Garenne: 25%
Clichy: 23%
Nanterre: 21 %
Bagneux: 19 %
The five cities of Yvelines with the highest poverty rate:
Mantes-la-Jolie: 32%
Trappes: 26 %
Les Mureaux: 25 %
Mantes-la-Ville: 21 %
Poissy: 15 %
The five towns in Essonne with the highest poverty rate:
Grigny ;: 44 %
Corbeil-Essonnes : 27 %
Évry-Courcouronnes : 24 %
Ris-Orangis: 23 ;%
Les Ulis : 21 %
The five cities of Val-d’Oise with the highest rate of poverty:
Garges-lès-Gonesse: 38%
Villiers-le-Bel: 35%
Sarcelles: 34%
Argenteuil: 27%
Goussainville: 27%
The five towns in Seine-et-Marne with the highest poverty rate:
Melun: 25%
Dammarie -les-Lys: 21 %
Meaux: 21 %
Torcy: 18 %
Chelle s: 15%