National audience Conçue initially as a political response to the movements of unemployed people, the introduction of the FUS quickly took the form of an operation to select priority groups for social work, with a view to granting financial aid, the rules for which were largely left to the discretion of the departmental authorities. The authorities responsible for steering the system in the Alpes-Maritimes were led to base this selection in part on the user himself, on his ability to identify himself as a target and to justify his request, and on his determination to assert the relevance of this self-designation. The article then shows that, like an autonomous user, capable of a narrative, the rationality of which was intended to ensure clarity and thus directly addressed an evaluation committee fully informed, it replaced a configuration of actors with imprecise contours consisting of a multiplicity of social stakeholders who, in various forms, unofficially suited the system. The consequence of this dilution of the legitimate power to say who was affected by the FUS lies less in the lack of justice or accuracy in the distribution made, than in the lack of collective significance of that public response.