TRUE OR FALSE. Is it true that only 37% of social housing is equipped with elevators, as Sabrina Agresti-Roubache states?

The Secretary of State for Citizenship and the City assures that “in priority neighborhoods, 37% of buildings are served by elevators”. It’s true, according to data from an interministerial report submitted in 2021. France, overall, is under-equipped with elevators.

This is a real social issue. How to take your shopping and stroller to the 4th floor without an elevator? How to live with stairs when you have reduced mobility? The Secretary of State for Citizenship and the City, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache wants to launch a “large elevator plan”. She assures on TF1 that only “37% of buildings in priority neighborhoods are served by elevators.” True or false ?

No more than 60,000 elevators

It’s true, this proportion is fair according to the data presented in an interministerial report on “the adaptation of housing, cities, mobility and territories to the demographic transition”written by Luc Broussy, president of France Silver Eco and co-founder of the think tank Matières Grises, and submitted to the government in 2021. It is written that “the social park has 50,000 elevators” and that this corresponds to “barely 37%” social housing in apartments “served by an elevator”. Contacted by franceinfo, the author of the report explains that he based it on discussions with the French elevator federation at the time of writing his report and on data from INSEE.

Also contacted by franceinfo, the Social Union for Habitat (USH) specifies for its part that, according to its count, the French social fleet has between 55 and 60,000 devices, which remains consistent with the calculations made at the time by the report writer.

If we expand to all collective housing, including private housing, more than half of French people who live in a building have to take the stairs, according to INSEE census data.

France under-equipped

How can we explain such a deficit? France is under-equipped. Old buildings were not equipped when they were built and the country is now falling behind. There are approximately 9 elevators per 1000 inhabitants, according to data from the French Elevator Federation provided by franceinfo. Our Spanish neighbors count 22 per 1000 inhabitants and the Italians 17. The European average is 11 elevators per 1000 inhabitants. Since 2018 and the application of the ELAN law, the elevator is compulsory from three floors. France has complied with the European standard, but it takes time to catch up.

With the aging of the population, however, there is urgency. The majority of seniors want to age in place, and their homes must be accessible and suitable. Today, 45% of people over 80 live in HLM without an elevator, specifies the interministerial report. And those who are equipped must deal with breakdowns. A quarter of the elevators in France are over 40 years old, they are necessarily dilapidated.