Paris (AFP)

One year after the deadly collapse of three unhealthy buildings in Marseille, the ambition of the public authorities "is absolutely not up to the stakes posed by the unworthy housing" in France, says the delegate general of the Foundation Abbé Pierre , Christophe Robert.

To eradicate the 600,000 unworthy housing it lists, the association calls for a national plan that sets the municipalities and the state the goal of renovating 60,000 homes per year for 10 years.

Question: One year after the tragedy of the rue d'Aubagne in Marseille, have we taken the measure of unworthy housing in France?

Answer: It is difficult to say whether this disaster really created the basis for a transformation on the fight against unworthy housing. There is a new sensitivity to the question. There are mayors who have been alerted by this disaster, additional resources that have been put in place in terms of inspection as well as on the judicial level. But concretely, in the implementation of answers for the victims of unworthy housing, we are still very far from the account.

According to our statistics, there are about 600,000 unworthy housing in France. It's huge. It means that a structurally very offensive policy in the long term is essential. We must put the package in Ile-de-France, especially in Seine-Saint-Denis, in the Bouches-du-Rhone, which is a very affected department beyond Marseille, part of Occitania, some cities of Hauts-de-France, and a set of medium-sized towns in economic decline, and whose park is deteriorating at high speed.

Q: Does the government lack ambition on this subject?

A: The ambition formulated today by the public authorities is absolutely not up to the stakes posed by the unworthy housing in our country. We have not been heard on the plan we proposed last January: we are not at all at the level of the goal of 60,000 homes renovated each year for 10 years, which we want.

If there are no such objectives, we are convinced to the Fondation Abbé Pierre that in two years, we will certainly intervene on a number of housing, but we will not put a considerable ambition to eradicate the problem. The National Housing Agency (Anah) has renovated in recent years between 12,000 and 15,000 homes per year. So you see that there is a long way to go.

It is imperative that the state set national objectives, contractual (these objectives) with communities. And if communities do not act, there must be state substitution. Exactly as for the law SRU (Urban Solidarity Renewal) on the construction of social housing (which requires municipalities to have 25% of social housing in their housing stock, ed).

Q: Beyond renovation, are there other measures that would help fight this scourge? A housing police, as the Republicans propose in the Senate? A license to rent as in some places of Seine-Saint-Denis?

A: The one who wants to act already has all the incentive and coercive tools to do it. So simplify the fonts, no doubt yes, but that will not prevent it will require political will.

Regarding the renting permit, for it to be effective, it must be ensured that the means have been put in place to give the first authorization (to the owner), that is to say that there are really visits (control) in the dwellings. And then we can follow the housing in time: a home can be healthy at the first visit, but ten years later, it can be completely rotten because there is plenty of infiltrations. And in this case, there was a blank check given by a document from the community to the owner to rent it.

So you really have to have the means to accompany the license to rent, and you think it should rather be limited in small areas very marked by unworthy housing, islets in some urban centers.

© 2019 AFP