She was to visit an 83-year-old former farmer, as part of personalized professional support. The man shoots her, kills her and kills himself. It was May 12th. Audrey Adam, 36, social and family economy advisor for the Aube departmental council, died in the line of duty. There was no official tribute or headlines in the newspapers. Not a minute of silence, except that given on May 17 by the social workers, shocked by the lack of reaction from the public authorities. This dramatic news is not without resonance with others. The list of social workers killed in recent years is long. In 2015, in Nantes, Jacques Gasztowtt, a specialist educator, also died while exercising his profession. Just like the specialist educator Marina Fuseau, in 2017, in Poitiers, or even Cyril Pierreval, head of department of a reception center in Pau, last February.
A deafening indifference
For Benoît Teste, secretary general of the FSU, this deafening indifference is “That a new demonstration of the lack of consideration and interest devolved to this professional field”. Alexandre Lebarbey, from the health and social work federation at the CGT, recalls the hard daily life of social workers, “Punctuated by violence in the face of an often difficult audience, in crisis”. He sees it every day: accidents at work, psycho-social difficulties at work, recruitment difficulties and frequent requests for assignments or sectors affect social workers more than other professions. Ridiculous salary (an educator starts his career with 1,400 euros net), workloads which explode in the face of worsening inequalities and the pauperization of fragile populations …
In these hellish conditions, social workers are running out of steam and are asking for more resources. Human, financial and continuing education. All the more so as, first of all, they must “Heal the wounds of a society sick with the dilution of social ties and the destruction of collective frameworks and devices which nevertheless make it possible to cushion social misery”, raises the Solidaires union. They, the invisible ones, as they call themselves, carry out missions of general interest on a daily basis. “So that society does not explode”, raises Cécile Boullais, social worker for social assistance to children. And sometimes fear in the stomach.
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