Emmanuelle Cosse is a former environmental minister for housing, under François Hollande. She is now president of the Union for social housing (USH), which defends the interests of 631 HLM organizations. They manage 4.7 million social housing units, making it the largest stock in Europe. However, France is not the European country where the share of social housing is the largest in the overall real estate supply. With 16% of HLM in the total mass of housing, France offers proportionally less social housing than the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden or Denmark.
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Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Social Union for Housing (USH), believes that Emmanuel Macron bears a heavy responsibility for the fall in social housing construction since 2017. © Marwen Farhat
What is the scale of the social housing deficit in France?
The private sector no longer offers enough controlled rents. The demand for social housing has therefore increased by 20% in eight years. This leads to this record figure of 2.2 million households waiting for HLM. The rising cost of housing, on the one hand, and the decline in the purchasing power of the French, on the other hand, which we measure well among our tenants, mean that not only is demand strong, but that those who have HLM housing stay there longer. We are seeing an increase in the number of over 65s among our tenants who, in the past, were more likely to manage to become homeowners.
So we are not building enough HLM?
To meet demand, 150,000 additional HLM housing units would have to be built per year. However, after reaching 124,200 in 2016, which showed good momentum, housing starts have continued to decline, falling to 87,300 in 2020 and probably less than 100,000 in 2021.
Why this fall?
As soon as he was elected in 2017, Emmanuel Macron destabilized social housing. The €5 drop in APLs a stay in mind. But it was accompanied by an imposed reduction in rents which deprived HLM organizations of 6 billion in revenue, which could have financed the construction of 200,000 housing units. In 2018, the State also reviewed the reduced rate VAT from which the construction of HLM benefited. Finally, it has reduced or canceled some of its subsidies, including aid for stone intended for very social housing, which makes it possible to house the poorest, in particular people who must be taken off the street.
HLM organizations also have thermal sieves. Will they be able to renovate them as quickly as required by the Climate Law?
Of our five million social housing units, there are 80,000 classified as G (the most energy intensive), 300,000 in F and 800,000 in E, which will respectively be prohibited from renting in 2025, 2028 and 2034. In principle, we are very much in favor of accelerating the renovation of the heritage. But the timetable assumes that we increase the number of homes rehabilitated each year by a third, currently 50,000. This while the tenants are in the premises. We must then be aware of the fact that, unlike the private sector, we will not be able to increase our rents, despite the cost of the work, because our tenants will not be able to afford it. However, the law does not provide any particular assistance for social landlords.
Of 1,035 municipalities required to have social housing, 550 do not meet the quota set by the SRU law (Solidarity and urban renewal). What do you think ?
This law, which is twenty years old, has always suffered from opposition from certain local elected officials. Until the arrival of François Hollande in 2012, the State was not very valiant in enforcing it, allowing large cities to remain in violation, particularly in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Île- of France. This is also the case of Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, but more of Paris, since Anne Hidalgo proved that we can still build HLM in a big city. The government has just secured the SRU law over time, which is a good thing. But I’m waiting to see if the prefects will apply it everywhere, which is far from the case. However, they have all the powers in their hands.
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