A polytechnic graduate, Salesian priest, and specialized educator, he works both on the ground and at the political level. He founded Le Valdocco in Argenteuil (Val-d'Oise), an association dedicated to social mediation. Between disengagement and a hunger for life, where does today's youth stand? Here is his answer.
People say young people are reluctant to commit. Are they really so lukewarm?
Today's young people strike me as generous—just as their parents were. But they struggle more to commit to an institution.
They won't mobilize for the cause of immigrant foreigners in the abstract. But if a girl in their class faces expulsion, they rally to her side immediately. Same with scouts: they'll gladly give time, energy, and money to dig a well in an African village, yet they're less ready to join a CCFD campaign (the Catholic Committee Against Hunger and for Development). That's where the shift shows. When young people can't see the results of their choices, they turn inward and act individualistically. But when they encounter suffering face-to-face, I watch them mobilize just as their parents do.
What has changed is their relationship to time. They live in the now. I see it as a consequence of lost confidence—a difficulty projecting into the future. When adults keep saying, "Yesterday was good, today is hard, tomorrow will be catastrophic," I'm not surprised young people struggle to think long-term. The shift is toward everything right away.
What makes commitment difficult?
Young people struggle to make choices. Not a choice between yes and no, but between yes and a thousand no's. They fear that committing means giving up freedom. If they say yes to one association, they're turning down other opportunities that might come along. Saying yes to a girl means crossing out every other option.
I see this difficulty in my work as an educator when I want to launch a summer project: it never works right away. You have to develop a pedagogy of projects where time gradually increases. Start with a first weekend. Once that succeeds, they might commit to a short vacation period. When they've gained confidence by seeing good results, then you can discuss a full summer project. You have to help them recognize the joy of keeping their commitment. All of this must happen gradually.
You've worked with young people from poor neighborhoods for thirty years. Like disabled people, they too live under the gaze of others.
During adolescence, a young person becomes aware of the gap between the image he wants to project and the image others send back to him. The great danger is withdrawing into yourself or your small group of "people like us." When you talk to a disabled person, the greatest source of suffering isn't usually the disability itself—it's the gaze of others that pins them to their limits. The same happens to young people judged by their ethnic or cultural background. A young man isn't just Maghrebi. That word might say something about his identity, but nothing about his gifts, talents, or abilities.
When I become aware of how the gaze of others hurts me, it can change how I look at others. It's always a great gift to welcome one or two disabled kids into a group of young people and discover the richness of the person beyond the disability.
How do we encourage these encounters with disabled people?
An encounter works when it's supported—when young people have real time to know each other. They discover that the boy with cerebral palsy can have sharp intelligence even when he struggles to speak, that people with severe disabilities in their wheelchairs can offer keen reflections on the world, that a child with Down syndrome has incalculable gifts for showing tenderness and joy in living that rivals those who think they're normal because they're able-bodied.
We shouldn't fear meeting difference, because it enriches us. But we have to recognize a common humanity. We need to spend time together to truly know each other.
Interview by Guillaume Desanges
(Ombre et Lumière n. 179)