Le RSA, innovation ou réforme technocratique ?

The study is a contribution to the analysis and evaluation of the RSA (Active Solidarity Income), established by the Act of December 1st 2008 and implemented since June 2009. In the first part of the paper, the authors analyze the intentions of the promoters of the reform. They study the text of the Commission ?Families, Vulnerability, Poverty? convened in 2005 by the president of Emmaüs, Martin Hirsch. They highlight its diagnosis: the failure of the RMI (Minimum Integration Income); its main recommendation: establish a social allowance that appears as a radical innovation and its ambitions: remove threshold effects and make the system more transparent for the beneficiaries. In the second part, the authors analyze the implementation of this policy in the department of Paris where the observation and research took place between March 2010 and June 2011. They study how the administrators of the RSA have interpreted the text of the Act in order to develop the instruction and guidance processes towards the RSA beneficiaries, and how the different people involved implement the measure. The authors then question the initial choices that led to the ?design? of the RSA, notably the decision to first and foremost direct the beneficiaries towards Pôle emploi (the French equivalent of the job centers) and to strictly separate professional and social trajectories.