Gabriel Attal wants concrete results by 2027

The government is accelerating on housing policy and has as its deadline the end of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term.

Gabriel Attal assures, Wednesday February 14, that he wants “go and find all the possible accommodations with your teeth”. He thus responds to the strong criticism he has been subjected to in recent weeks for having waited a month before appointing a minister in charge of the file, Guillaume Kasbarian, who is not a full minister, but a delegate minister.

The team is now in place and the will shown, but the situation is critical, because according to the site specializing in real estate transactions, SeLoger.com, the rental offer has fallen by 36% in two years. Growing demand automatically leads to an increase in rents, which was +3.5%, on average across France, in 2023.

If we add to this the rent control which deters many owners from renting their property and heavy environmental constraints, we obviously need to simplify the procedures and speed up the pace. The equation is simple given the government’s other objective, which is to fight unemployment and achieve full employment in 2027. However, to find a job, or accept a transfer, you must be able to find housing.

Development and simplification

The head of government intends to fight “centimetre by centimetre, square meter by square meter”. Some 22 territories have been identified as priorities for relaunching projects, which could not see the light of day without public money. This concerns a total of 30,000 housing units from Villejuif to Dunkirk, via Dieppe, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseille and Saint-Nazaire.

Gabriel Attal wants construction “vertically” with the raising of buildings where possible, without forgetting the individual houses which are part of “from the French dream”, according to the Prime Minister. It is planned to simplify procedures so that those who wish can build additional accommodation on their land as well as to develop social housing and achieve the objective of 35,000 student accommodations by 2027.

The president of the French Real Estate Federation, Loïc Cantin, welcomes Gabriel Attal’s desire, but all this seems to him to be a drop in the ocean of needs to be satisfied. Furthermore, the Prime Minister did not mention the role of banks, which is crucial in granting loans to households. However, banks are today very cautious about the idea of ​​granting credit to support households in their real estate projects.