I launched the project “Coup de Pouce pour l’Insertion” (Helping Hand for Employment) in June 2008. The aim of the initiative is to give young people without any qualifications from underprivileged areas a chance, and it targets two audiences. Firstly, unqualified youngsters. People are typically recruited when they have two years of further education under their belts, but Societe Generale has set up a specific and adapted course that, to date, has enabled 11 youngsters, with no prospect of professional insertion one year ago, to be on the verge of signing a fulltime job contract with Societe Generale.

The other people that “Coup de Pouce pour l’Insertion” is aimed at are young people with qualifications from underprivileged suburbs of Paris, who are given the chance to have a sponsor to help them find a job. With 240 of our staff sponsoring 364 students at Masters Degree level, the Group is the n°1 partner of the “Nos Quartiers ont des Talents” charity association, which aims to show that even the most impoverished suburbs are home to skilled and talented people. 157 sponsored students have thus already found fulltime work, 26 of them with Societe Generale.

These encouraging results pushed me to propose Société Générale for the Diversity and Corporate Action award. The purpose of the award is to highlight and reward companies that develop original and audacious initiatives to fight discrimination, increase awareness and push other companies into implementing policies and actions in favour of diversity. Presided by Richard Descoings, Director of the Paris Institute for Political Studies, the jury chose, from amongst 30 candidates, Societe Generale for its “Coup de Pouce pour l’Insertion” (Helping Hand for Employment) initiative, which won the award for action in favour of young people from underprivileged areas. Frédéric Oudéa our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, collected the award in person. Amongst the five very concrete initiatives rewarded by the jury were French railway company SNCF’s “Le Train pour l’Emploi” (The Employment Train), cosmetic giant L’Oreal’s volunteer teaching and French television group TF1’s Foundation.

We intend to use this success to extend and develop the “Coup de pouce” programme in 2010. Our goals are:

- To allow 50 unqualified young people in the Ile de France and Marseille regions to receive help with professional insertion;
- To have 300 sponsors for young graduates from impoverished suburbs, with an extension of this operation to the Rhône-Alpes, Midi-Pyrénées, Nord Pas-de-Calais and PACA regions.