Housing: 30.500 households evicted in 2025, a new record, according to the justice commissioners

According to data from the National Chamber of Judicial Commissioners published on Tuesday, unpaid rent is also slightly increasing by 2,4%, with 175.000 payment orders issued to tenants in 2025. This is the first legal step before the start of legal proceedings which may lead to the eviction of the tenant in arrears.

"There is not so much an increase in the orders to pay, but really a hardening of the legal procedure, linked to the Kasbarian-Bergé reform" of 2023, emphasizes Manuel Domergue, director of studies at the Foundation for the Housing of the Disadvantaged.

This "hyper alarming" figure of evictions in 2025 is the result of "severer court decisions and more systematic evictions with the assistance of law enforcement", according to Mr. Domergue.

"We have been seeing on the ground for several years less reprieve, less tolerance for the elderly, the sick, those with young children, or those without housing solutions, who are still being evicted," he laments.

In 2024, evictions had exploded by 87% compared to the previous year, due to the worsening housing crisis and the backlog of unpaid rent cases dating back to the Covid period, which could not be dealt with before.

The "significant increase in procedures for recovering unpaid rent" must be understood in light of the "15 million rental properties" in France, stressed Benoît Santoire, president of the National Chamber of Judicial Commissioners (CNCJ), formerly bailiffs, whose role is to execute court decisions.

The proportion of unpaid rent is "quite low considering the number of tenants," he estimated during a press conference.

Drug trafficking and anti-squatting laws

Benoît Santoire sees "more and more on the ground the application of the drug trafficking law" of April 2025 which provides that a prefect can refer a matter to a judge to expel any person whose actions disturb public order.

In total, 63.700 requests for eviction by law enforcement were filed last year. This figure is equivalent to that of 2024, according to the chamber.

Between the first unpaid rent and an eviction, the minimum procedural time is 8 months, but in reality it is more often closer to 2 years, mainly because of "the hearing time" for cases, according to Benoît Santoire.

Several implementing decrees of the 2023 Kasbarian law, known as the "anti-squat" law, have been published in recent months to clarify the compensation of the owner in the event of refusal by the State to evict, to streamline the recovery and eviction procedures.

"While a tenant leaves their accommodation without notice, inventory, or sometimes even informing the landlord, "leaving without notice" has also increased by 11,7% in one year.

Some 6.000 reports of abandonment of a dwelling were made in 2025.

The justice commissioners presented four measures to "streamline relations between landlords and occupants", "reduce the legal proceedings for unpaid rent", "accelerate the recovery of unpaid rents", as well as condominium fees.

As for squatting, the court officers do not have data on the subject and refer to the "1.130 court decisions" issued in 2019 for illegal occupation, the latest official figure known.

The eviction figures presented by the chamber are drawn from the register of actions carried out by bailiffs, the aggregation of which is automated. Meanwhile, the state data comes from reports submitted by the prefectures.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.