"If we cannot find accommodation, we cannot be recognised," declared the head of government during his general policy statement.
François Bayrou welcomed "the efforts made by previous governments to lift constraints on housing construction" and considered it possible to "go even further by reducing deadlines, simplifying authorization requests, promoting densification, and facilitating changes of use."
"This involves relaunching rental investment and home ownership, and supporting elected builders through a system of investment incentives, including private investment," he added.
However, he did not specify any measures.
"The Prime Minister has stuck to very vague remarks on housing policy," deplored Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Union sociale pour l'habitat (USH), which represents social landlords, in a press release.
She adds that she hopes "that these generalities are not a sign of a lack of understanding of the scale of the housing crisis of which our fellow citizens on low incomes are the first victims."
For Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of Real Estate Developers (FPI), the "roadmap" presented by François Bayrou "corresponds point by point to all the proposals put forward by the FPI since 2022". After two years of a serious crisis in new real estate, "it is urgent to act!", according to him.
France is currently experiencing a deep housing crisis, which affects all sectors of the sector: the social housing stock is saturated, the rental supply has shrunk, high interest rates have slowed down, or even blocked, households' property purchase plans and new construction is also suffering from rising construction costs.
This housing shortage is pushing up prices, particularly in high-demand areas, while housing is already the biggest expense for French households.
The Prime Minister mentioned the difficulties of students in precarious situations in finding housing, and will launch "the construction of 15.000 housing units per year for three years, by mobilizing the State's available land". He considered that the "university map and the university network" were a "major social issue" in addition to an "academic" subject.
"Nothing on social housing, nothing on freezing and controlling rents, nothing on rental permits, nothing on energy renovation", but a "course set on the continuation of austerity and anti-poor policies", criticized the National Confederation for Housing (CNL), in a press release.
The CAPEB notes good intentions which remain to be clarified and put into practice.
As Prime Minister François Bayrou has just finished his general policy speech, CAPEB sees in his remarks signals that he has heard the call of building tradesmen for a return to political stability and the urgency of taking action for housing. Although few specific measures have been announced, CAPEB will continue its mobilization so that concrete measures are taken on the important points that the Prime Minister addressed in his speech.
First of all, CAPEB supports the need expressed by the Prime Minister to regain stability and quickly adopt a budget, issues on which CAPEB has been particularly active, particularly in the context of its action "We are taking our responsibilities, and you?", as the difficulties of craft construction companies were amplified by this climate of inaction.
A responsibility that the Prime Minister seems determined to take since he claims to want to accompany the savings to be made for a return to budgetary balance, with a movement of reform of public action, by rethinking all State budgets. An essential measure for a fair distribution of the budgetary effort to be made to deal with our country's over-indebtedness.
CAPEB wishes to welcome its willingness to engage the government in a powerful movement of debureaucratization and to quickly adopt the bill to simplify economic life that has begun to be examined and that CAPEB strongly called for. The weight and complexity of the administrative burdens weighing on craft businesses are such that CAPEB is pleased that VSEs are being heard by the Prime Minister.
He then focused on the subject of housing when he spoke about the policy he wanted to implement for a more balanced French territory, recognizing its central place and the need to equip ourselves with a rethought and large-scale housing policy. CAPEB welcomes this ambition, which corresponds to the proposal it had formulated to conduct a cross-cutting reflection to rethink housing policy and find sustainable solutions to the crisis the sector is going through by holding a Grenelle.
CAPEB asks the Prime Minister to address this issue as quickly as possible with the entire sector and using all the levers at his disposal. The issue of housing renovation, which the Prime Minister mentioned through his desire to facilitate changes in use, must be considered in line with the potential that this issue represents to allow everyone to have access to affordable housing.
Renovation is also an essential lever for successfully achieving the ecological transition and finalizing the low-carbon strategy, as the Prime Minister wishes. In view of the decisive role that building tradespeople have to play in meeting the challenge of energy renovation and its massification, CAPEB is counting on the Prime Minister to give them the means to do so, by ensuring the entry into force of the measures they requested, which were the subject of favorable arbitrations prior to the dissolution and which are now only awaiting legislative or regulatory translation.
For Jean-Christophe Repon, president of CAPEB: "Meeting the expectations of craft businesses in the construction industry, which have been experiencing a decline in activity for six quarters, means supporting the entrepreneurial spirit. These are French companies that, while not multinational, act on a daily basis for the general interest in the regions. They train young people and ensure the succession of their companies, they maintain local activity, they preserve and create jobs and ensure the energy transition and the improvement of everyone's comfort. They are the lungs of our regions. In view of the importance that the Prime Minister gives to the regions in his statement, he must make their task easier, as he claims to want to do for "companies that are called multinationals". CAPEB also calls on him, in the name of democratic pluralism, to work towards a reform of the rules of social dialogue so that the voice of VSEs in the construction industry is finally heard at its true value."