"I did not expect to attend this," confides, from his home in the Oise, the sociologist François de Singly.
This septuagenarian, specialist in the family and the couple, cannot believe it.
While updating the seventh edition of his work
Sociologie de la famille contemporaine
– a sum that became a reference and published for the first time in 1993 – he did not imagine living “such a revolution” in the couple, to which in passing the quinquas and the sexas are among the most attentive: he speaks here of a “silent wave of decohabitation” between the partners, which the experts cannot really quantify, but which is no less real.
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Together, but not too much
“We have gone from a time when young couples wanted to be together, live together under the same roof, but not necessarily get married, or even less and less, to this unexpected phase when no one is in a hurry to move in. of them."
This is enough to call into question the very definition of the “couple” as given (still officially today!) by INSEE, which retains among the criteria inherent in its existence the fact of “living in the same accommodation, regardless of legal marital status”.
“The other huge surprise, continues François de Singly, also author of
Libre ensemble
(Éd. Armand Colin), was to note that most often, this desire not to resign for a cohabitation was the fact of women”, especially in a second part of life and after a separation.
In video,
La Crise by Coline Serreau
, excerpt
A woman, however, actress, screenwriter and director, had drawn the line in… 1992. Not only did her film not age, but it was a precursor.
The scene, for those who have already seen it, is unforgettable.
In
The Crisis,
therefore, Coline Serreau invents the character of Isabelle (played by actress Zabou Breitman).
Someone is ringing at the door.
Isabelle opens.
On the landing, Didier, her "guy", tells her that he is "taking the plunge".
"I'm sick of not spending all my nights with you," he said.
Behind him, stacked moving boxes, mountain bikes and even a Tintin rocket, as an explicit relic of his life as a teenager, wait.
In a tirade larger than life, Isabelle then draws up an exhaustive list of the reasons why she loves him, "a lot even", but wants to live "alone, alone, alone": "We see each other from time to time, everyone does what he wants and that's just fine," she concludes.
New geometry
Thirty years later, the question of a couple's living space, its territories and its borders could not be more burning.
We have even entered, for François de Singly, the era of the conditional couple – understand the one where each one sets his conditions;
and a fortiori of the conditional family too.
This is where the spirit of colocation deploys its new trappings of seduction.
Or a whole range of possibilities where loving each other can remain a goal, a joy, where supporting each other remains a life project why not, but not at any price or condition...
And since double housing is not financially given to everyone, and certainly not everyone's choice, the 2023 version of shared accommodation is about to draw a new geometry for the couple when they continue to live under the same roof. (which is the majority of cases).
All generations can experience it.
We are committed, but not like yesterday, we are there, but not systematically… “It is not necessarily a rise in individualism, explains the psychoanalyst Hélène L'Heuillet;
and we can see a very positive aspect, a kind of breath of fresh air that enriches the bond.
Care or concern for the other can win out – because when I'm there (for you) I'm really there.”
Appointments are not or no longer routine, they are not self-evident, they are not imposed by daily life,
More than the space we separate, it's the time we reclaim
Hélène L'Heuillet, psychoanalyst
“We see each other because we want to, not because we share a rent”, sums up Julie, a 35-year-old architect, in a relationship with Romain for six years.
Pacsés, they lived separately for four years, but did not change their way of life when they moved in together.
"Sometimes we text each other at 6 p.m. to ask if we'll see each other tonight," smiles his companion.
"More than the space that we separate, it's time that we reclaim," observes Hélène L'Heuillet.
We are so stressed in our lives that we need certain intervals and interstices.
To the point of sometimes not supporting this collective that is the couple, or the family.
We want less and less to sacrifice our freedom to the other.
Faced with this equation between a taste for freedom, cohabitation within the family, and more recently teleworking, she encourages some of her patients to cultivate their own moments – everyone keeps their evening, their universe, their “things to themselves” in sort of – to then bring what you want to the other.
“We went from 'free together' to 'cool together', observes François de Singly, as if the basis of the agreement was not the same.
» «In some unions, the evolution towards joint tenancy is nothing serious.
There are families – especially when there are still teenagers at home – where you don't even know who is there at the same time, and that's not a problem,” continues Hélène L'Heuillet.
The meaning of sharing
But this idea of "sharing" in the couple is not seen by everyone in the same way.
The word today moves in different spheres of society, and if it means quest for flexibility, respect and freedom for some, for others it would be precisely a forbidden word, a kind of alarm signal. , before the "roommates" realize that "in this context, if you are bound by certain rules, you are not obliged to add more because... there is no emotional relationship".
Léonard and Sibylle separated a few months ago because they had "become roommates", analyzes the ex-wife of the duo.
They worked from two opposite places in the apartment, passed each other,
explains this CEO in ready-to-wear.
I am struck by how much among young people who live together, the bond evolves towards vacations together, often a very strong friendship that will survive beyond cohabitation.
Hélène L'Heuillet, psychoanalyst
Hélène L'Heuillet, who is also a lecturer at Paris Sorbonne, analyzes it in a more optimistic way: “To avoid a weakening of the link, there are rituals that we must not miss.
You have to be able to keep something of the strong sense that sharing a roof means.”
By creating real and lasting appointments – like certain meals together, for example, we keep something friendly and warm without cutting back on our independence.
The shrink continues: “I am intrigued by the equivocal meaning of the word.
We can think that if we are roommates we no longer share anything – this is the pejorative sense of the term – and on the other hand, I am struck by how much among young people who share roommates with each other, the bond evolves towards a holiday together,
Twenty years after the release of the film
The Spanish Inn,
by Cédric Klapisch, who really created this imagery of Epinal of a roommate between students from different European countries (and whose sequel, in series,
Greek salad,
is announced soon on platforms), the principle of sharing a common space has reinvented itself in its DNA as well as in its vocabulary.
co
-living
is no longer necessarily a question of financial comfort for young Erasmus students who would like to share their rent, but rather a lifestyle choice for those who have financial means, but are fleeing loneliness or simply want to live this experience.
"It can even be a step into 'soft conjugality', which avoids the fact of going directly from daily life with your parents to life as a couple, which can be explosive", develops Hélène L'Heuillet.
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The Spanish Inn
, the trailer
At the end of 2018, Magalie Safar and her brother thus created Koliving, a platform intended for ultra-fast rentals and which lists roommate ads.
“Not only has shared housing become more professional and digital, she explains, but it attracts a whole different clientele of young workers able to spend more than €1,200 in rent per month to share a space of 200 meters squares with standards that are far from the simple room with shared bathroom and kitchen.”
Among the popular products on Koliving, a 12th century castle, located in Beuzeville-la-Bastille (Normandy), has 15 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms, or a 260 square meter house in Créteil.
The pandemic has often been an opportunity to take the leap for those who aspired to these new lifestyles.
During the first confinement, the specialized company Koliving also experienced an increase in growth of more than 30%, without the inhabitants deserting once “normal life” was found, going on average from six months to a year of cohabitation.
According to Magalie Safar, "this new possibility also brings a well-being and a well-being that did not exist – or in a more disorganized way – for this kind of public until then".
Grandparents too
Indeed, there are countless cohabitation initiatives in France.
In 2016, Paul Alexis Racine-Jourdren, a former student at Paris-Dauphine and the Ecole du Louvre, created This Family.
This social and solidarity economy company was launched around joint tenancies between seniors in shared houses.
Today, it provides for the opening of 400 places of this type, i.e. 3,200 places throughout the territory by 2026. Whereas in 2050, France will have more than 22.3 million elderly people, representing more than 32% of its population, and that real estate pressure is increasingly strong, the other trend observed in the United States is shared accommodation between grandparents and grandchildren.
In an interview given to the
New York Times
last September, Robert E. Elson, was amused to see appear in the refrigerator of his apartment on the Upper West Side, in New York, a whole bunch of energy drinks or almond milk that neither he nor his wife weren't drinking.
This coincided with the arrival of Madeline David, their granddaughter and "roommate" for a year.
The young woman had been received at the Climate School of neighboring Columbia University, but her parents were unable to find her a room.
"Why doesn't she come and live with us since we have an extra room?" he replied simply.
Twenty years ago, I hesitated to put roommates in my publications among the other forms of living together, I think I will soon have to do it
Francois de Singly
The example of the Elsons is not isolated.
"We are hearing more and more cases where grandchildren live with their grandparents," explained in the same article Donna Butts, who heads Generations United, an association based in Washington, which works in the establishment of programs and intergenerational policies.
If in the United States and the United Kingdom studies are more developed than in France on this subject, François de Singly remains very attentive to it.
"Twenty years ago, I hesitated to put roommates in my publications among the other forms of living together, I think I will soon have to do it," he concludes.
In the meantime, his work will not be called
Sociology of the contemporary family,
but
of contemporary families.
Proof, if we still doubted it, that all models exist.