Enforceable right to housing: ECHR rejects case brought by poorly housed people against France

The Strasbourg Court was seized by French, Pakistani, Ivorian and Moroccan nationals, living in Paris and in the Ile-de-France municipalities of Sarcelles and Vitry-sur-Seine.

All of them obtained administrative court orders mandating their housing or rehousing under the enforceable right to housing law (DALO), but these orders have never been implemented. Some have been waiting for housing for several years.

In a ruling delivered on Tuesday, the Court noted this non-execution but observed that the authorities had put in place "a beginning of execution", through the combination of a penalty mechanism, aimed at financing actions in the area of ​​enforceable housing, and a compensatory mechanism allowing compensation for individual damage.

The Court further emphasizes "the magnitude of the challenges facing the French State".

It concluded, by five votes to two, that there had been no violation of Article 6 paragraph 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, relating to the right to a fair trial, "despite the unreasonable nature of the execution delays".

"Huge disappointment"

The court's ruling is "completely unjustified," Sacha-Abraham Partouche, the plaintiffs' lawyer, told AFP. He emphasized that two of the seven judges expressed a dissenting opinion and "absolutely do not understand why the well-established case law is being deviated from."

Indeed, in 2015, a Cameroonian woman in her forties, living in Paris with her daughter and brother in unsanitary housing, had France condemned by the ECHR for not having rehoused her.

The Court had ruled that the State had violated the mother's right to a fair trial by failing to execute a judgment ordering it to provide her with alternative housing.

According to Mr. Partouche, the ECHR ruling issued on Tuesday is "an attack on the rule of law".

Faced with his clients' "enormous disappointment," he advised them to request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, a kind of appeals procedure. They have three months to do so.

Established by law in 2007, the enforceable right to housing (DALO) obliges the State to find housing solutions for the most disadvantaged. However, more than 100.000 households recognized as priority cases are still waiting to be rehoused.

Despite appeals to administrative courts with decisions ordering rehousing under penalty of fine, sometimes "the State prefers to pay rather than rehouse", laments Carole Guilhaumaud, general delegate of the Dalo association which works for the application of this legislation.

Among the clients represented by Mr. Partouche, a 68-year-old woman has been homeless since June 2023 and is living on the streets. Another client has been living in a one-bedroom apartment (T1) with a surface area of ​​10 cubic meters since June 2019, along with his two children born in 2012 and 2014.

"Explosion in demand"

For Manuel Domergue, director of studies at the Housing Foundation, the Dalo law is "an achievement" that has provided "a recourse for households waiting for social housing without a response".

From 2008 to the end of 2024, 1.475.999 Dalo appeals were filed to obtain housing and 477.767 received a favorable decision, according to the 2026 annual report of the Housing Foundation.

But while 308.547 households were housed, 23% of households recognized as priority, or 110.324 households, were still waiting for housing in 2024, "some for 16 years", this document indicates.

For Manuel Domergue, the problem is "a shortage of social housing" while at the same time there is an "explosion in demand" linked to the "increasing precariousness of the French" and "the rise in prices in the private sector".

The situation is particularly tense in the Ile-de-France region.

"We would need to produce many more social housing units to meet the demands of priority households under Dalo," explains Mr. Domergue, emphasizing "that there are also other households waiting for social housing."