In its annual report to the Prime Minister, the Conseil d'orientation de l'édition publique et de l'information administrative (COEPIA), estimates that 20% of the population is at risk of being excluded from access to information and public services.
Although two-thirds of the French population declare that they carry out administrative and tax procedures online, the COEPIA observes that "39% of them declare that they are wary of the transition to all-digital procedures, with a significant proportion of users expecting support from the public authorities to familiarize themselves with the use of electronic means". The COEPIA reminds us that 13% of the population aged 18 and over declare that they are unable to declare their income online, download or fill in forms online or obtain information online, which means that no less than seven million people are completely excluded from the digital administration.
The COEPIA identifies three factors to be taken into account in the digital transformation of the administration: ageing, illiteracy and lack of native French language skills.
- Aging: according to INSEE data, the number of people over 75 years old was 5.8 million in 2015, or 9.1% of the total metropolitan population. Their numbers and proportion are set to grow sharply in the next twenty years, reaching 9 million in 2035, or 13.3% of the total metropolitan population. "A substantial part of this population will not have access to digital technology, either because they have never had access to it, or because they will give it up for reasons of physical or intellectual impairment .
- Illiteracy: the number of people with difficulties in written expression or comprehension remains considerable, since INSEE in a survey "Information and daily life", estimated in 2011 at 16% of the population aged 18 to 65 years, the number of adults with difficulties in the basic areas of writing, which corresponds to 6.1 million inhabitants. 11% of them had serious or severe difficulties; those enrolled in school in France, who could therefore be considered illiterate, represented no less than 7% of the population, or 2.5 million adults.
- Lack of native learning of the French language: the difficulties encountered in writing are particularly high for people educated outside of France in a language other than French, with 61% of this category encountering serious or severe difficulties, and one third of people educated outside of France encountering difficulties in writing.
The COEPIA concludes that "more than 21% of French people aged 16 to 65 are below level 2 as defined by the survey, i.e. they have great or very great difficulty in reading and using the written word. More than 57% would be below level 3, not mastering the skills needed to be completely autonomous.
This proportion of one in five French people excluded (or at risk of being excluded) from access to digital services, adds the COEPIA, "is not likely to vary considerably insofar as the improvement in the learning of written French, which would have positive effects on the ability to use digital technology, would only compensate for the certain ageing of the population, which would in turn have negative effects on this use.
According to the COEPIA, it is therefore up to the administration to "take into account this part of the population that is not digitally literate in its dematerialization development projects: to include the most fragile publics, because of their age or their use of French, for example, implies showing agility and understanding towards people who are not resistant to digital technology, but simply unable to use it.
This finding of the COEPIA is in line with the diagnosis of the 2016 Digital Barometer, as well as that established for many years by social actors such as Emmaus Numerique.
The COEPIA, which reports to the Prime Minister, is responsible for evaluation, expertise and advice in the fields of public publishing and administrative publications, whatever their medium, administrative information and intelligence, the provision of public data, and, recently, by the Defender of Rights.
According to the Human Rights Defender, "situations of precariousness and difficulties in accessing administrative information on the Internet are linked. The more precarious the situation, the more likely it is that the persons concerned will be penalized by administrative procedures to be carried out online, or even that they will not have the necessary equipment to do so. However, these two situations do not entirely overlap. Thus, 23% of the non precarious people also report difficult or non-existent access to administrative information on the Internet".
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