Budget: Bruno Le Maire gets tangled in thermal sieves

“It is not a question of changing the timetable as it has been determined, it is simply a question of thinking about how we can be simpler and clearer for our compatriots,” assured the Minister of Economy and Finance on the occasion of the presentation of the 2024 budget.

A reference to the timetable, set by the Climate and Resilience Law of 2021, which plans to gradually prohibit owners of energy-intensive housing from renting their properties, to encourage them to undertake renovation work.

Concretely, owners of housing in energy performance class G, the worst, will no longer be able to sign or renew a lease with a tenant from January 1, 2025.

A small part of them has even already been hit by this ban since January 1, 2023: so-called “G+” housing, whose final energy consumption is greater than 450 kilowatt hours per square meter per year.

Housing classified F must follow in 2028 and E in 2034.

“I call for these measures and their application to be sustainable for people,” declared Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday evening before the Senate.

"I am a minister, I am also a citizen. As a citizen, I listen to what my compatriots tell me: when they tell me that it is too complicated, that we need better support, more clarity, more simplicity, I tell them they are right,” he added.

In an exchange with readers of "Parisien" published a few hours earlier, Bruno Le Maire said, "personally", "very favorable" to a revision of the rental ban calendar, "in particular for co-ownerships”.

"Clarify"

This relaxation has been demanded for a long time by employers' organizations, such as the National Real Estate Federation (Fnaim), whose president Loïc Cantin welcomed the minister's comments to AFP.

“We are delighted to have been heard, now declarations of good intentions must be transformed into actions, and urgently,” he said.

But in the political world, criticism was met, even by the majority.

“We have set a timetable. This timetable is essential for ecological reasons, but also for social reasons,” recalled the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu.

“In a context of purchasing power problem, I think that everyone will have understood that there is an absolute urgency and a gain in purchasing power, beyond the climate gain which is obvious, to deal with these thermal strainers", defended her counterpart in charge of Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

“We must not return to Saint-Glinglin, (...) it is a trajectory that we have taken which is important and we must not give up”, also estimated the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, while Renaissance MP Pierre Cazeneuve declared: “Let’s not postpone our objectives, let’s accelerate!”

Wednesday morning during the presentation of the 2024 draft budget to the press, Bruno Le Maire therefore tried for the first time to adjust his speech.

“Everyone knows that the ban on the rental of so-called G+ strainers is already underway, but everyone also knows that it poses a certain number of problems for co-owners. There are flexibilities that have been put in place (.. .). Are they clear enough? I think we can clarify them further, simplify them further,” he defended.

This clarification could concern cases where an owner fails to have renovation work approved by his co-ownership, outlined Christophe Béchu.