French housing mostly unsuitable for climate change, according to the Court of Auditors

The residential stock faces three major risks: heat peaks, shrinkage-swelling of clay soils which weakens the foundations of housing, and flooding, recalls the Court in its annual report.

Since 2010, France has been “strongly committed to the transformation of its residential stock through the policy of energy and thermal renovation of housing”.

But this policy is above all "mitigation", insofar as the desired objective "expressly concerns the reduction of the final energy consumption of housing and greenhouse gas emissions".

She therefore focused on changing the heating method and improving winter comfort.

Conversely, global renovations, which make it possible to treat the entire home (...) only represented 3% of the surfaces renovated in 2022 as part of the "MaPrimeRénov'" aid system.

While the risks are expected to increase in duration and frequency, and the swelling shrinkage of clays now affects "the entire metropolitan territory", measures to adapt housing therefore remain "rare" and public aid unsuitable.

In the new stock, the town planning and construction rules "have certainly multiplied and clarified", but these housing only represent "a contribution limited to 1% per year of the stock".

Certain risks are not taken into account "for lack of knowledge of the areas concerned and the responses to be provided", such as flooding due to rising water tables.

Furthermore, "no prospective study has been carried out on the overall cost of adapting housing" nor "on the distribution of related costs" between the State, communities, businesses and households.

To act on the existing stock, the magistrates recommend developing “sustainable technical solutions”, particularly financially, and “effective”, as well as regularly raising public awareness of the risks.

“The issue of adapting housing must therefore be placed among the public priorities and lead to the emergence of an overall policy,” they emphasize.

Solar protection work should in particular be integrated into renovation aid schemes.

They also ask to accelerate research projects and experiments relating to the prevention of the risks of flooding and shrinkage-swelling of clay soils.

Finally, the future national adaptation strategy must “quantify adaptation scenarios for the residential stock and define their implementation methods”.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.