Coronavirus: the winter truce of evictions extended until June 1

The winter break for rental evictions will be extended by two months and "will end on June 1 instead of April 1" because of the health crisis, Emmanuelle Wargon, Minister of Housing, announced on Monday.

"This decision to extend also leads to a truce on energy cuts following unpaid heating bills," said the minister in an interview with Le Parisien, evoking the need to give "a new chance to households in difficulty".

Already in 2020, because of the pandemic, the truce had been postponed for more than three months.

This announcement comes at a time when the Abbé Pierre foundation publishes an alarming report: the coronavirus pandemic has not only created new precarious situations but also worsened the situation of millions of people already poor and badly housed in France.

"From a health crisis that has become an economic one, there is a risk of falling into a social crisis. We are now facing a real risk of dropping out of households in difficulty," added the Minister.

"It seems essential to me to prioritize and to stagger evictions while taking care not to evict without a solution of rehousing or at least accommodation".

The latter also recognized that it was necessary "to better compensate the lessors of which one does not evict the tenant because one wants to give him a second chance" specifying that she was for an automation of this compensation.

In 2020, 3,500 people were evicted from their homes, according to a parliamentary report published on Sunday, a decrease of 79% compared to 2019 due to the extension of the winter truce until July 10 due to a health crisis.