The government has not completely abandoned the housing issue. At least he's trying to make it look like it. Elisabeth Borne took advantage of a timely trip to Dunkerque, the electoral lands of the new Minister of Housing, to announce a new housing assistance plan. Finally plan... rather a second lifesaver which consists first of all in putting €500 million on the table to produce intermediate housing. Then, to hope that institutional investors will do the same in order to produce 30,000 lots by 2026. In vain, most professionals respond to him for lack of acceptable performance. Finally, to call back the soldier CDC to the rescue by asking him to restore the cover for a new wave of new housing purchases.
These announcements come on the day when the Federation of Real Estate Developers (FPI) publishes the worst statistics ever known, with a fall of more than 30% in sales in the 3rd quarter, a halving of sales and developers who no longer hesitate to abandon their projects. “The new construction sector is on the brink of a precipice,” the president of the FPI alarmed.Pascal Boulanger. Nobody came to contradict him.
While the executive does not care about saving developers, it does understand the link between housing and employment. It is not entirely a coincidence that, in Dunkerque, the Prime Minister is announcing new initiatives to relaunch new production in the morning and is going to lay the first stone of a factory in the afternoon. Wanting to reindustrialize France without being able to house it is wishful thinking.
Housing is also the business of businesses, but it cannot be their sole responsibility, unless they want to reinvent the Familistère de Guise. While it is useless to still believe in the welfare state to solve the housing crisis, we cannot do without a coherent and coordinated policy to unfreeze a market that has been ankylosed since the rise in interest rates. This is the promise of a new bill in the spring that should “reestablish the link between employment and housing.” It's not Patrice Vergriete Who says it, but the people around Bruno Le Maire. Ah, if Bercy takes the bull by the horns, we may have (good) surprises.