Pledge 21 – Lyon

On 24 January 2019, Lyon metropole (‘Grand Lyon’) became the 21st city to sign a pledge to the European Pillar of Social Rights.

The Former President of the Métropole de Lyon, David Kimelfeld, signed a strong commitment to five principles of the EU social pillar:

Principle 4 on active support to employment
Principle 2 on gender equality
Principle 9 on work-life balance
Principle 11 on childcare and support to children
Principle 19 on housing and assistance for the homeless

To provide active support to employment, Grand Lyon pledges to:

• Deliver the Metropolitan Programme for Social Insertion through Employment for 2016-2020.
• Allocate a yearly budget of €240 million (including €6 million in ESF contributions) to support 10,000 unemployed find a job on the metropolitan labour market.
• Mobilise 1,000 companies by 2020 to promote labour market insertion and local employment.

To promote gender equality and work-life balance, Grand Lyon commits to:

• Implement an action plan on gender equality in 2018-2020 (including €200,000 from ESF funds for 2019-2020).
• Organise training courses and raising awareness of gender equality among the 9,000 staff of the metropolitan administration.
• Pilot teleworking for 140 staff in 2019 and extend to 500 in 2020 to facilitate better work-life balance and promote gender equality.

To provide childcare and support to children, Grand Lyon is committed to:

• Implement the Metropolitan Solidarities Project for 2017-2022 to ensure better prevention, better support and better protection for children.
• Allocate a yearly budget of €62 million to support over 100 childcare facilities and services and employ over 300 family assistants (foster families).
• Provide each year €3 million in food aid assistance to families and €1.4 million to young adults aged 18-21.
• Support 2,675 children and young people have a place in education institutions and 2,189 children in an establishment or living quarters.

To guarantee decent, affordable housing for all, Grand Lyon pledges to:

• Provide minimum 8,500 new housing units each year of which 4,500 social housing in view of reaching 25% social housing in the total local housing market by 2025 (by investing each year at least €62 million in housing).
• Implement Housing First to reduce by 50% the number of homeless by 2025.

The Former President of the Métropole de Lyon, David Kimelfeld, said: “Europe cannot function and meet the needs of all its citizens if some of them are not able to benefit from economic and social progress. In Grand Lyon, our model of governance takes social issues into account globally, in particular through public policies aimed at the most vulnerable.”