Public housing in France or social housing in France (french : logement social, also called by generalization Habitations à logement modéré or HLM) is a central, local or social program designed to provide subsidized

Subsidy

A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...

 assistance for low-income and poor

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

 people.

Statistical data

The public and social housing in Europe

Country	Number of residences per inhabitants
Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...	147
Austria Austria Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...	102
Denmark Denmark Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...	102
Sweden Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....	95
United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...	85
France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...	69.2
Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...	27
Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...	18
Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...	3

France had 4,508 millions of HLM the first January 2010 (except overseas regions of Martinique and Guyane).

History

France has a long tradition of social and state intervention in the housing market. In 1775, the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans

Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans

The Saline Royale is a historical building at Arc-et-Senans in the department of Doubs, eastern France. It is next to the Forest of Chaux and about 35 kilometers from Besançon. The architect was Claude-Nicolas Ledoux , a prominent Parisian architect of the time...

 was built with a part dedicated to house workers. In the XIXth century appeared the cités ouvrières, company towns inspired by the Phalanstère

Phalanstère

A phalanstère was a type of building designed for an utopian community and developed in the early 19th century by Charles Fourier. Based on the idea of a phalanx, this self-contained community ideally consisted of 1500-1600 people working together for mutual benefit...

 of Charles Fourier

Charles Fourier

François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...

. After World War II, the population increased at a rate previously unknown, the rural exodus increased, while war damage had reduced the number of houses in many cities. Rental prices dramatically rose, and the government made a law in 1949 to block them, effectively ending the economic benefits of housing investment. Additionally, construction was strictly regulated which made building very difficult without political support.
The government launched a huge construction plan, including the creation of new towns ("villes nouvelles") and new suburbs with HLM (Habitation à Loyer Modéré, "low-rent housing"). The state had the money, the legal means to acquire the land and could provide some advantages to the companies that built its huge housing complexes of hundreds of apartments. Quality was also effectively regulated, resulting in decent or even top quality housing for the standard of the time (this was in the 1950s and 1960s). Political forces used the HLM weapon effectively, for the family that was given the opportunity to have an HLM could only be thankful to its local mayor; besides, a "communist" mayor was always happy to have as much HLM as possible, for their tenants were poorer and more likely to vote for him, while its "gaullist" neighbour was as much happy to see them leave.

HLM construction was also a major source of political financing : building companies had sometimes to pay back the political party of the mayor that launched an HLM program. This resulted in corruption scandals

Corruption scandals in the Paris region

In the 1980s and 1990s there were, in the Paris region , multiple instances of alleged and proved political corruption cases, as well as cases of abuse of public money and resources...

.

France still retains this system, a law of 1998 making it an obligation for every town to have at least 20% HLM.

The different kinds of social housing

• The HLM
  HLM
  HLM , French for "housing at moderated rents" or "rent-controlled housing", is a form of subsidised housing in France. There are approximately four million such residences, housing an estimated 12 million people — nearly one-fifth of the population of France...
  
  , Habitations à loyer modéré, can be private or public. They are the most common and are housing an estimated thirteen million people.
• Subsidized housing (built by private sector)
• Cooperatives

Current situation

While they succeeded in giving lower-income families a place to live, this system also led to the creation of suburban ghettos, especially in the Paris region. There, deprived strata of the population, mostly of immigrant origin and suffering massive under-employment, were left to simmer away from the gentrified urban centres, sometimes becoming rife with social tensions and violence. Tackling this problem at its roots is all but simple, with a lack of success despite many plans, so that a blind "law-and-order" attitude is now common in French internal politics, with few effective results and violent symptoms.

Effect on economy

The social housing programs in France have an obvious positive effect on the consumption of the households that benefit from them. There is no consensus about the influence on the rents of the private sector and on the prices of real estate.

External links

at Cour des Comptes