CHRONIC. Social housing: unraveling?

Clément Viktorovitch returns every week to the debates and political issues. Sunday May 12: the housing law, tabled this week in Parliament, and which notably plans to modify the rules imposed on municipalities with regard to the construction of low-rent housing.

First of all, we need to go back a little, to fully understand what we are talking about. Last January, in his general policy speech, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal surprised everyone by announcing a reform of the SRU law. The SRU law requires municipalities with more than 3,500 inhabitants to have at least 20 to 25% social housing in their main residence stock. What Gabriel Attal proposed was that part of this quota could now be reached with intermediate housing, intended, according to him, for the middle classes. An announcement which had aroused criticism even within the macronie.

But this announcement was ultimately not found in the housing law: the Minister of Housing, Guillaume Kasbarian, has already amended his copy. What he wants to change is the pace of the catch-up imposed on municipalities which do not respect the SRU law. Today, they have the obligation to build a certain number of social housing units each year. It is these quotas of new constructions which will now be able to include a share of intermediate housing. The government assures that in the end, we should always reach 20 to 25% of social housing in large cities. It will take longer. But should also lead to more homes built, including intermediate housing.

In the immediate future, the consequence will mainly be a slowdown in the construction of social housing. But we need it more than ever! Today there are 2.6 million households waiting for HLM: this is the official figure in 2023, it has never been so high. According to the latest report from the Abbé Pierre foundation, France has more than four million poorly housed people, including 330,000 people on the streets, a number which has more than doubled. There is an emergency, in France, to house these people.

The middle classes victims of insufficient social housing

The government emphasizes that middle-class French people also have difficulty finding housing. And that’s true. But what, exactly, is “middle class”? The director of studies of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Manuel Domergue, went to see the gates of intermediate housing. He tells us that the resource ceilings make it possible to accommodate households earning up to €7,500 per month, for a couple with two children, in cities like Lyon or Lille. So, not really “middle class” anymore, in fact! The real middle class should have access to social housing! The problem is that their requests are not the most urgent, and are therefore rarely met… precisely because we are not creating enough social housing!

In 2023, 82,000 were built: the lowest number since 2005. In particular: a decision taken under the Macron presidency: the government reduced the resources of social landlords, by requiring them to reduce their rents, to compensate… the drop in APL. Contrary to the announcement effects, government policy has therefore, and will continue to have, the consequence of depriving middle-class families of the social housing to which they should be entitled.

The SRU law, inapplicable?

This is indeed what we hear. And that’s totally false. Of the 2,000 municipalities affected by the law, half have already reached their social housing quota. The town of Sceaux, for example, in Île-de-France, went from 12% in 2002 to 27% today.

It is true that there are refractory municipalities, but they are not just any municipalities. The calculation was made by Hugo Botton, doctoral student in urban sociology: if we take the 20% richest municipalities, nine out of ten still have a deficit in social housing. Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, for example, still in Île-de-France, cannot even reach 10%, and prefers to pay 6.5 million euros in penalties per year rather than comply with the law. The fact remains that more than half of the social housing built over the past 20 years has been built within the framework of the SRU law.

The law ended up imposing itself, and produced effects. The Association of Mayors of France is not asking for it to be called into question. An information report delivered in April 2023 by two deputies, Annaïg Le Meur and Vincent Rolland, one Renaissance, the other Les Républicains, even recommended strengthening the SRU law. The government prefers to take a stab at it, for political reasons, but to the detriment of the poorly housed, the poorest… and the middle classes.