“Complementary investigation” obtained data on which the authorities never communicate. They show a very different situation.
About 12 million French people who live in thermal sieves or are forced to go without heating. It is also an ecological emergency, since the building sector represents almost half of the energy consumed in France. Faced with this situation, the State has made a commitment: by 2050, the entire building stock will have to achieve “low consumption” on average, i.e. energy class A or B. This objective is engraved in the Code energy since 2015.
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The site is gigantic: currently, classified A or B housing only represents 5% of the stock. In total, there are still 35 million homes to be renovated in 27 years. Thus, the pace to be maintained is more than one million sites each year.
Out of 669,890 files, only 65,939 “global” renovations
Faced with the delay, Emmanuel Macron promised in March 2022 to finance “at least 700,000 renovations per year” during his second term. Today, this commitment is respected, according to the Minister of Energy Transition. According to Agnès Pannier-Runacher, guest on the set of “Complément d’Enquête” Thursday March 2*, “Five years ago, we were doing 70,000 renovations a year. Today, we are doing 700,000, that’s a tenfold increase!”
We checked this figure with the National Housing Agency (Anah), the organization in charge of renovation with the government. In 2022, there were not 700,000 housing units renovated, but “669,890 files paid through MaPrimeRenov'”. Above all, out of these 669,890 files, only 65,939 “global” renovations were carried out, ie less than 10%. The vast majority only concern “work gestures”, such as changing windows or heating. However, according to Vincent Legrand, general manager of the social and solidarity economy company Dorémi and specialist in energy efficiency, “France will only be able to achieve the 2050 objective by financing real global renovations. That is to say, according to the Building Code, which reach energy level A or B. By treating both the insulation of the entire building envelope, then the replacement of ventilation and heating”.
“The most symbolic outweighs the most effective”
So how many of the “comprehensive” renovations put forward by the government truly reach class A or B? This figure does not appear anywhere in the official communications of Anah. But after many exchanges, we finally got it: “SOf the 65,939 overall renovations, nearly 13,400 housing units came in low-consumption building class”. In other words: nearly 80% of these “global” renovations financed by the State do not reach the initial objective…
In one year, therefore, not 700,000 dwellings but rather 13,400 would have been brought up to standard. At this rate, it would take more than 2,600 years for France to take care of the 35 million to be renovated.
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Agnès Pannier-Runacher qualifies this figure of 13,400 A or B renovations, which according to her corresponds to those where “diagnosis before / after” was done. “Not everyone makes the diagnosis, because it is a diagnosis that is expensive”, she specifies. Indeed, only “global” renovations are subject to a diagnosis. For the others, i.e. 90% of cases, the State does not control the effectiveness of the public money spent. Before a Senate Inquiry Commission opened on the subject, the former Minister of Ecological Transition François de Rugy acknowledged last month that in terms of energy renovation, “the most symbolic far outweighs the most effective“.
* France 2 broadcasts an issue of “Complément d’Enquête” entitled “Energy renovation: billions spent for nothing”, Thursday March 2, at 11 p.m.