In this first chapter of Part One, as in the initial chapter in each of the following three parts, I begin with some basic, empirical reminders about poor young persons in France today.

Poor Children I: Numbers

In her November 15, 2010 Annual Report, France's official “Defenseure des enfants” claimed that, of the 8 million persons estimated to be living below the poverty threshold in France, 2 million are children living in families with total incomes below 950 euros per month. These numbers, however, are questionable. For quantifying correctly the numbers of poor children in France today remains problematic.

Defining Poverty as Poverties

To see why, one needs merely to recall some of the many distinctions among different kinds of poverty. Among these various distinctions are those between relative and absolute poverty, subjective and objective poverty, transitory and chronic poverty, and so on. Even more numerous are different so-called “metrics” or measures of poverty such as the incidence of poverty (that is, the number of poor persons and the rate of poverty), the intensity of poverty (the sum of the disparities with respect to the threshold of poverty), the inequalities among the poor themselves, and so on.