Until now intended for low-income households, social housing could well in the future be allocated as a priority to another category of French people. A project examined by the government, which provokes strong reactions.
On French territory, there are 5.3 million social housing units, which benefit around 10 million people. These accommodations, which are also commonly called HLM for moderate rent housing, have for years been allocated to low-income and disadvantaged French people based on specific criteria. One of these conditions concerns the applicant’s annual resources. These must not exceed a certain ceiling which varies depending on the region where the accommodation is located. For example, since January 1, 2024, the ceiling in Paris and neighboring municipalities has been set at 33,857 for one person, and 50,603 euros for two people to accommodate. These homes are therefore in principle reserved for households with low incomes and who struggle to find housing. But this may well change in the future.
Indeed, in a report, submitted to the government this Wednesday, Renaissance MP David Amiel suggests the idea of devoting certain social housing to some of the civil servants to serve as their official accommodation, according to information from the Parisian. In France, there are around 5.7 million civil service agents. Why such a project ? To try to find solutions for police officers, teachers and nurses who live far from their workplace.
“In many territories such as Île-de-France, metropolises, border or tourist regions, the question of housing has become central to the ability to recruit within the public service. By working on this report, I I met agents who travel hours to get to work, who live in very degraded conditions”, explains the MP. In this project, these official accommodations would be of a “new type”, that is to say they could be vacated if the civil servant changes profession or rented temporarily to agents who are looking for their own accommodation.
As you can imagine, such an idea is not unanimous among all French people. On the social network X (formerly Twitter), opinions are very divided. “It’s a mistake. The civil servants have no problem finding accommodation. They reassure the owners. So reserving social housing for them means taking it away from us, from the low-income earners that private landlords don’t want. “comments an Internet user under the publication Parisian. Still others put forward the argument that certain civil servants already have social housing dedicated to them. Today, it is true, each departmental prefect has 5% of the HLM housing stock to house state civil servants.