25,000 jobs for youth volunteers

NICOLAS Sarkozy is planning to create work for more than 25,000 young people as paid charity volunteers to help on environmental initiatives, with old people or in schools.

His proposals would mean 50,000 state-subsidised contracts at a cost of €300 million and also increasing the uptake of a little-used scheme for paid voluntary work.

The proposals are aimed at people aged between 18 and 25 who will be paid at the rate of about €600 a month.

Seen as a replacement for compulsory military service – a scheme that ended in 1997 – the plan backs up Mr Sarkozy’s presidential campaign pledge to get young people doing six months of obligatory civic work.

At the moment only about 2,500 young people are involved with the volunteer scheme, working with the Red Cross or the Ligue de l'enseignement.

Previous plans for expanding the scheme were dismissed as impractical and too expensive but the present economic crisis, with increasing unemployment among young people, has meant a change in priorities.