Housing red alert: the main organizations in the sector are calling for emergency measures

Faced with the housing crisis, the executive is facing growing annoyance from professionals, who denounce Monday its "procrastination" in an open letter to Emmanuel Macron.

"The time is no longer for observations, procrastination or hesitation", immediately attack the presidents of the main construction and real estate employers' federations (FFB, Pôle Habitat, Fnaim, FPI, Unis).

"When will the state take the real measure of the risk of an economic, social and societal bomb that the crisis of the 'power to live' that our fellow citizens face?", they ask.

The housing world as a whole - developers, social landlords, associations... - was already making its impatience heard, faced with a situation that is deteriorating on all fronts.

The pace of new housing construction has plummeted in recent months, a victim of rising construction costs and difficult access to credit. And the number of households waiting for social housing has never been so high (2,42 million).

Supposed to respond to these issues after several months of consultation with the actors, the Housing component of the National Council for Refoundation (CNR) was to deliver its long-awaited conclusions on May 9, but the restitution was postponed to June 5. , "due to a schedule constraint" according to the ministry.

"It's the most total misunderstanding. We worked for four months, we were good students. We know that we will not be heard", declares to AFP, annoyed, Loïc Cantin, president of the National Federation real estate (Fnaim).

"Exasperation"

Emmanuel Macron did not help matters. In an interview with Challenges published on May 10, the President of the Republic called for a new "conference of parties" to respond to the housing crisis.

“We cannot expect everything from government reform,” said the head of state, castigating “a system of public overspending for collective inefficiency”.

"We are now no longer expecting yet another consultation, but the expression of a clear and ambitious presidential will as well as quantified measures, a rapid implementation schedule and financial means adapted to the challenges", respond to him the employers' federations.

"After all that has been done, the commissions, conferences, committees, meetings, debates... on housing, I believe that today, everyone has given what they had to give in terms of proposals, and we have to decide because the urgency is there”, plague Olivier Salleron, president of the French Building Federation.

"The exasperation, in fact, is general because the housing situation is very bad," says Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Social Union for Housing, which represents social landlords.

"We have a feeling of embolism of all access to housing, and opposite, we have no proposal, no perspective, no answer. And that partly explains these reactions".

"We do not know why, both at the Ministry of Housing and everywhere, we agree with us, but at the level of the President of the Republic, it blocks", reports Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of promoters real estate (FPI), who would like "to make him understand that he is wrong: housing pays off."

"We are not discovering the current difficulties and the government has been fully mobilized for several months," said the Minister Delegate for Cities and Housing, Olivier Klein, in a statement sent to AFP.

The restitution of the proposals of the CNR Housing "will make it possible both to formulate immediate solutions" and "structural responses", he adds.

Consult the open letter addressed to Emmanuel Macron.