French housing crisis report calls for urgent building plan
France has reached an unprecedented housing crisis, with an estimated 3.6 million people living in inadequate or substandard housing while the country lacks some 900,000 accommodations in the publicly-managed ‘social housing’rented sector. That was the dire message of the latest yearly report released earlier this month by the Fondation Abbé Pierre, one of France’s leading charitable organisations dedicated to improving housing conditions for the poor, which called on presidential election candidates to sign up to a "social contract" to meet the urgent demand for affordable and decent accomodation. Ellen Salvi reports.
FranceFrance has reached an unprecedented housing crisis, with an estimated 3.6 million people living in inadequate or substandard housing while the country lacks some 900,000 accommodations in the publicly-managed ‘social housing’rented sector. That was the dire message of the latest yearly report released earlier this month by the Fondation Abbé Pierre pour le logement des défavorisés, ('The Abbé Pierre Foundation for Housing of the Needy'), one of France’s leading charitable organisations dedicated to improving housing conditions for the poor.
