Guillaume Kasbarian, known for his “anti-squat” law, new Minister of Housing already criticized

Guillaume Kasbarian, a pure sugar liberal

The 36-year-old MP with a good-natured style cut his political teeth in the National Assembly, where he was propelled in 2017 by the wave of marchers labeled “civil society”.

Re-elected in 2022, he has established himself as one of the rising values ​​in the presidential camp's parliamentary pool. And his name had already been circulating behind the scenes among the “ministers” expected during the July 2023 reshuffle.

With housing, a sector in crisis, it inherits one of the hot issues of the coming months, often described as a "social bomb".

Within the majority, the elected official from Eure-et-Loir was recently one of the deputies who argued for reducing the tax advantages of short-term rentals of the "Airbnb" type.

His “anti-squat” bill, adopted in mid-June by Parliament, earned him initial media exposure. And also a heavy fire of criticism coming from the left and associations denouncing a “criminalization of all the poorly housed”.

Putting it in Housing "would be a serious error, the DAL (the Right to Housing association, Editor's note) cannot support it", one of his fellow MPs recently said.

But "on the ground, people stopped him in the street to congratulate him" for his law, assures a collaborator of the deputy, who hammers home his liberal convictions, on the economic level "and also societal". Just like his aversion “to taxes of all kinds”.

Guillaume Kasbarian likes to recall that it was the speech “neither right nor left” and the personality of the head of state that attracted him to politics.

“Macron, I am still a member of the fan club, and if there is only one left at the end, it will be me,” he said smiling in front of journalists last summer.

He was a consultant in a consulting firm when he launched into the nascent “En Marche” movement in 2016, founded by Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy.

He became responsible in his department of Eure-et-Loir. Then one thing led to another, in the wake of the 2017 presidential election, he ran for the legislative elections in the first constituency of Chartres.

The thirty-year-old will thus ride the wave of young Macronist elected officials from civil society, who arrive at the Palais Bourbon without political baggage, but with the stated ambition of bringing their experience of the private sector.

“Cash side”

At the Assembly, he specialized in particular in economic and industrial questions.

Which means he will move up the ranks after his re-election in 2022 by taking the head of the Economic Affairs Committee, where he “negotiates with everyone, except LFI and the RN”.

Very active during the consultations around the bill on "green industry", he was the general rapporteur of the special commission on this text.

A fan of the "cash side" of the Head of State, including his little phrases criticized about the street to cross to find a job or the "crazy money" of social assistance, Kasbarian wants to be a practitioner of straight talking himself. .

Like when he castigates on Or, still on the social network, when he mocks the “Marxist” inspiration of Marine Le Pen’s economic program.

Born in Marseille into a family of Armenian origin, graduated from Essec after having lived for a time in Kenya, Guillaume Kasbarian, often wearing a beret made in France, lives in a cottage in a small village in Eure- et-Loir.

He returns there as soon as possible, according to those around him, to join his two black cats “Winston” and “Churchill”.

Kasbarian's arrival at Housing ulcers the left and associations, and raises a lot of expectations from the right

The arrival at the Ministry of Housing of Guillaume Kasbarian, bearer of an anti-squat law, triggered a wave of indignation on the left and concern in social housing circles and solidarity associations.

The elected representative of Eure-et-Loir, appointed Thursday after a month without a minister specifically responsible for Housing, has the heavy task of confronting a historic crisis, with production at half mast, an endless increase in the number of households waiting of HLM, or saturation of emergency accommodation structures.

His appointment to the Ministry of Housing, after two former socialists - Patrice Vergriete and Olivier Klein - marks a clear shift to the right, he whose main achievement in terms of housing is to have adopted, in 2023, a law toughening penalties against squatters.

The general delegate of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Christophe Robert, told AFP "to hope that the new Minister for Housing will be more attentive to the suffering of the poorly housed and to the difficulties experienced by our fellow citizens in terms of poor housing than "he was not when he passed a law which caused a lot of damage."

For the Left and associations, it is a “provocation”

Eddie Jacquemart, president of the National Housing Confederation, the first association of HLM tenants and close to the Communist Party, estimated on franceinfo that his arrival was "a real slap in the face to the entire housing sector" and a "declaration of war on tenants ".

“A provocation”, several left-wing elected officials jointly judged.

“Nominating the one whose only feat of arms is to have facilitated evictions is a spit in the faces of the 4 million poorly housed people and 330.000 homeless people,” denounced on X the head of LFI deputies Mathilde Panot.

“Guillaume Kasbarian is the author of the most repressive law on evictions in decades,” launched the communist Jacques Baudrier, deputy for Housing at Paris town hall, on the same network, while the leader of the environmentalist senators Guillaume Gontard mocked the arrival of a “minister of eviction”.

For the Right and employers' organizations, a lot of expectations for this new minister

On the side of employers' organizations, the president of the National Real Estate Federation, Loïc Cantin, judges that Guillaume Kasbarian "showed strong will, action and investment when he worked on the anti-squats law. But this "That's not what makes a housing minister. His action as housing minister will depend entirely on the road map he has and his ability to listen to professionals."

However, "we cannot be satisfied", he said, with the objective of 30.000 new housing units in 20 predefined territories mentioned by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal during his general policy speech.

The number of building permits issued in 2023 fell by 23,7% to 373.100, while according to several professional federations, around 500.000 per year would be needed to meet the needs.

Gabriel Attal had also aroused fears among defenders of social housing, by suggesting softening the SRU law which requires municipalities to respect social housing quotas.

“I clearly call on him to renounce reforming the SRU law which would be a catastrophe for republican equality,” Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Social Union for Housing, a confederation of social landlords, told AFP.

“What I am waiting for is to know how our minister will help us deal with the housing crisis and produce more social housing,” she added.

[1] Survey carried out by VIAVOICE among a representative sample of the French population of 1.005 people over 18 years old. Interviews conducted from January 5 to 8, 2024.

For the Housing Alliance, “we need an immediate action plan!”

The partners of the Housing Alliance – the FFB, the USH, the FNAIM, the FPI, Pôle Habitat FFB, PROCIVIS, the UNIS, the UNNE, the UNSFA and the UNTEC – congratulate Guillaume KASBARIAN for his appointment as Deputy Minister in charge of Housing.

While 83% of French people believe that the country is going through a housing crisis[1], the government's first announcements at the end of January are not up to par and do not respond to current issues. The shock of simplification, regularly promised, is long overdue. The supply shock, brandished in 2017, did not take place either.

It is time to do everything possible to relaunch, throughout France, new construction and boost the renovation of housing, the production tool being in the process of weakening, even fracturing with the announced loss of tens of thousands of qualified jobs throughout the sector. It is urgent to support homeownership for a real residential career for the French and long-term rental investment. We must also respond now to the collapse in demand, the main cause of the crisis.

The Housing Alliance, which has been making proposals for a long time, expects strong and immediate decisions from the new Minister of Housing. The members of the Alliance still believe in a revival which requires five commitments from the government: meeting the needs of the French in their different career paths, supporting individuals who wish to acquire housing, respecting professionals, putting in place realistic measures to meet the objectives of the National Low Carbon Strategy and, last fundamental point, to provide visibility via a multi-year plan.

Having already participated in too many consultations and missions that have remained in vain, the members of the Alliance are calling for the establishment of a real national housing policy and are available to meet collectively with the minister on February 9.

CAPEB asks the new minister to make the decisions that the sector is waiting for with great impatience

CAPEB extends its congratulations to Guillaume Kasbarian on his appointment to the post of Minister of Housing. The challenges that await him are multiple. The sector is facing an unprecedented crisis in new construction and a continuous decline in renovation activity for more than a year while the needs are immense. CAPEB calls on the new minister to place his roadmap under the sign of action.

To do this, CAPEB makes concrete, ready-to-use proposals which will necessarily contribute to the development of an effective housing policy.

The figures bear this out. The building trades are experiencing a decline in activity over the whole of 2023 (-0,6% in volume). This result is explained by the fall in new construction (-4,5% in the 4th quarter of 2023) but also by the timid and abnormal growth recorded by energy performance works (+1,5% only), which does not allow not to drive activity in the renovation sector upwards when it is a market in which artisanal construction companies are leaders.

With regard to new construction, CAPEB is convinced that we must reinvent the real estate development model, in particular by breaking definitively with the systems of the past. It remains at the entire disposal of the Minister to build innovative solutions which will bring about this necessary development.

In this period when new construction is in decline, the renovation market must be an absolute priority. This is an essential component for relaunching business activity, meeting the expectations of the French in terms of comfort of life but above all giving France the means to live up to its environmental ambition.

The 620.000 companies that make up the craft construction sector, or 97% of construction companies, are in working order. CAPEB calls on the Minister of Housing to give them the means to fully invest in this market. There is an urgent need to act.

In this regard, CAPEB recalls its Last Chance Appeal which it launched at the end of December with more than thirty major construction players for a review of the MaPrimeRénov' reform which came into force on January 1, 2024. The new Minister of Housing has at its disposal possible solutions, developed by and for the VSEs themselves, to make this reform less exclusive and more effective.

Expectations from the sector are very high. CAPEB hopes that the minister will be able to grasp the urgency of the situation and finally make the necessary decisions.

Finally, CAPEB would like to remind him that he can rely in his mission on a collective of VSEs in the building sector, present in all territories, competent, with expert know-how. We have the collective capacity to take up the challenge of relaunching the dynamic of energy renovations in 2024, which experienced a slump in 2023 as evidenced by the ANAH figures, as well as adapting the 680.000 housing units which must be in the next ten years.