After three months of investigations, 31 hearings and 4 round tables, the Senate's information mission "on the fight against illiteracy" has submitted its report.

After a review of the various factors of digital exclusion (social divide, generational divide, illiteracy, digital exclusions specific to certain groups) and its many dimensions (a major handicap in an increasingly digital society, a growing risk of undermining the principle of equality before the public service, the dangers of dropping out of school), the mission formulates 45 proposals, organized around five axes.

The fact-finding mission recommends regularly renewing the INSEE survey "to analyze digital uses... The evaluation of digital capabilities should also be systematized around a common reference framework. Local mapping of digital exclusion should be generalized.

"To this end, we must maintain the possibility of physical access and/or telephone reception for all dematerialized public service procedures. In this respect, the "Digital Solidarity" telephone platform, which was set up during the confinement, must be continued, to support people who are uncomfortable with digital tools.

"A right to error must be recognized for any digital process. The design of websites must take into account the widest accessibility from their conception by integrating the point of view of users throughout the development and operation of a public digital site.

"The State must be exemplary. The "e-accessible" label must be made more visible and each administration must assess its level of accessibility. Penalties for non-compliance with the accessibility of websites must be strengthened. Administrations must be encouraged to make full use of the resources of the fund for the integration of disabled people in the civil service (FIPHFP) to make their websites and applications accessible.

"One billion euros must be mobilized by 2002 to finance digital inclusion, which is four times more than the amount allocated by the government under the recovery plan.

The 250 million will probably not be enough to reach the new goal of 4 million trained by 2002.

"In any case, this objective seems unambitious," note the authors of the report, "considering that 14 million French people are not digitally literate and that nearly one out of two French people is uncomfortable with this tool. These resources must be made permanent in a fund to fight against digital exclusion, a public policy that is intended to become structural. The fund could be replenished by budgetary gains from the dematerialization of public services, the tax on digital services (GAFA tax) and a tax on streaming, as recommended by the Senate's information mission on the environmental footprint of digital technology.

The fund should primarily contribute to:

• to ensure that the digital pass is used more widely throughout the country;
• to accelerate the structuring of the digital mediation offer, by generalizing and increasing the power of the France Connect Hubs model and increasing the resources made available to the APTIC operator;
• to create a real professional sector for digital mediation, via a national training plan;
• to finance the delivery of an equipment voucher for low-income households, conditional on participation in training financed by the pass.

"To accelerate the deployment of the digital pass by local authorities, digital inclusion must be defined as a service of general economic interest (SGEI) and the resources of the operator APTIC, the actor in charge of deploying the pass, must be greatly increased by the State.

"Greater transparency must also be achieved in the implementation of the digital pass by publishing quarterly or semi-annual statistics on its deployment and use by the target audiences.

"Finally, the entire country must be covered by France Connect hubs by 2022, and their resources must be strengthened to enable them to fully carry out their missions, particularly in order to support local authorities in the deployment of the pass.

"Digital inclusion must be a priority for local public action, driven by the territories. A conference of funders must coordinate, in each department, the territorial interventions - public and private - and allow the deployment of the digital pass in all territories. A digital inclusion referent must be designated at the inter-municipal level, to guarantee the infusion of digital inclusion offers in all territories, including rural ones.

"All digital mediation networks and offers, deployed in silos and not very visible to target populations, must be grouped under a single banner, certified and mapped by APTIC and the France Connect Hubs."

"It is also necessary to increase the quality of the digital mediation offer, by moving from a logic of assistance - where the mediator does in the place of the trained person - to a logic of capacity - tending to digital autonomy.

It is therefore urgent, in parallel with the development of the pass, to forge a real professional network of digital mediators, by launching a national training plan and by better recognizing the profession of digital mediator. A significant part of the fund to fight against digital exclusion recommended by the information mission should be devoted to this.

"In this respect, a professional baccalaureate in digital mediation could be created. At the same time, the work of certifying digital mediation sites must be better linked to the France Connect hubs, and certified sites must be evaluated on a regular basis, based on a Pix test submitted to training participants.

Sentinels of illiteracy" must also be mobilized to better identify and direct people who are far from the digital world to the places of mediation.

"The "counters" (La Poste, CAF...) must be trained and associated to the detection of digital fragility and diagnostic actions must be systematized. Training in digital mediation must be made compulsory in the curriculum provided by regional social work institutes. Social workers must be better informed about actions to fight against digital exclusion, in order to direct the public towards training offers financed by the digital pass.

"For better coordination of public action, the digital inclusion policy must encompass the entire social field and all social operators (Pôle emploi, CNAM, CNAF, CNAV, MSA....), which must systematically offer the digital pass.

To this end, "the National Strategy must be supplemented by a digital inclusion component for low-income people. The conference of funders would implement this plan at the departmental level. An equipment voucher, intended for the rental or purchase of equipment, preferably reconditioned, for low-income households could be tested. The delivery of the voucher could be conditional on participation in a training course financed by the pass.

"The forced renewal of digital terminals weighs heavily on the purchasing power of low-income households. The lifespan of terminals must be extended by introducing a reduced VAT rate on repairs and reconditioning; penalties for programmed obsolescence must be strengthened, for example through recourse to name and shame. The fight against software obsolescence could be achieved by dissociating corrective updates from evolutionary updates.

"The right to Internet connection, introduced by the Law for a Digital Republic and experimented since 2017 in three departments must be extended to the entire territory. Free access (zero-rating) to certain digital services essential to the exercise of civic and social rights or to education could be introduced."

"Training in the use of digital educational tools must be mandatory for all teachers in primary and secondary schools, as well as for teachers in universities. A detailed inventory of the digital skills of students and teachers must be published based on the results obtained during the skills assessments provided by the national education system. A test on illiteracy must be incorporated into the Defence and Citizenship Day.

"Companies must be partners in the fight against illiteracy, which hinders the increase in digital skills of employees in an increasingly digital economy, and not only through teleworking.

"Digital inclusion must be integrated into the field of the ISO 26000 standard on corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR). The sponsorship of skills by companies must be encouraged, especially among those who have digital skills for the structuring of digital mediation, for example in its cartographic part. Finally, digital training should be considered as an investment and SMEs and VSEs should be allowed either to write off the costs of CSR support, or to take out a tax credit for the training of managers and employees in the use of digital tools and equipment.

"Finally, the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that digital technology is no longer an option for companies, but a condition not only for their development, but for their survival. Helping companies to digitize through the purchase of equipment should not lead to forgetting the digital training of their employees. The recovery plan must take into account the fact that employees of very small businesses, shopkeepers, craftsmen and self-employed entrepreneurs are still excluded from training programs, even though they are the first to suffer from their lack of digital skills.

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