Once again current events have caught up with the Semaines sociales. The theme of the 2009 session, chosen in 2007, is likely to be cast in a new light by the crisis. However, awareness of the fragmentation of the social body and the rise of multiple initiatives to respond to the problem were there before the collapse of the financial markets. With the new solidarities (Enterprises practising social reinsertion, fair trade, mobilization of the media in favour of the homeless, networks of the exchange of knowledge, social responsibility in the workplace…), the 2009 session explores the idea that the refusal of the Other has not only led to the growing marginalization of an important section of the population. It has also undermined the social tissue itself. The present crisis could make possible the transformation of these experimental new solidarities into a new departure for society as a whole.

What is problematic is that, despite the development of social protection, situations of increasing exclusion and precarity for part of society are worsening.
So what are these ‘new social risks’ ? What can we learn by listening to those who feel that society is looking at them in order to keep them away and to keep away from them? Understanding with them the causes of new forms of exclusion, learning to distinguish exclusion from poverty, will enable us to measure how much, historically, exclusion and the feeling of belonging are the fruits of a vision of society and of the ‘models’ which that society imposes. Finally, this question of solidarity turns out to be as much moral and political as strictly economic. Thus we can measure the revolutionary input of the Christian message which transforms poverty and deprivation into the very motive force of a fraternal relationship.

We shall therefore be attentive to these new forms of solidarity which are not simply responses to specific problems but which point the way to a social project which brings together rather than creaming off, which proclaims not only autonomy but also the ability to participate, which practises at the same time reciprocity and giving.

In these times of crisis, is it realistic to seek to generalize these initiatives which complement institutional support through voluntary links, between states, between generations, between a stable and a fragile workforce, between those who are plugged in and those who are disconnected ? Are there one or more global visions which can create coherence between local solidarities and the ambition of global sustainable development?