Laurent Chalard is a geographer and works at the European Center for International Affairs. Find him on his
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LE FIGARO. - The Minister for Housing Emmanuelle Wargon estimated that "the model of the pavilion with garden is not sustainable and leads us to a dead end", before backpedaling in the face of the controversy. What do you think of these words?
Laurent CHALARD. -
The health crisis has shown that many French people want to live in larger housing, with a garden. The minister's words seem out of touch with reality, especially given the current situation. They give the impression that within ministerial offices, regardless of the government and the national or international context, the same files are tirelessly reread. What is called the ideology of density consists in concentrating the maximum of population on the minimum of space, it implies that it is necessary to build increasingly massive collective housing, even towers. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, was in this logic of densification of the built environment before reversing since the health crisis, evidenced by the virtual abandonment of the Zac Paris Bercy project.The population does not seek density but, on the contrary, prefers individual housing.
What does the pavilion with garden represent in the minds of the French and more specifically the middle and working class? Is it the promise of comfort, space and tranquility, as Emmanuelle Wargon asserts?
It is not just a question of comfort, of nature, but an extremely important psychological element.
Not everyone can become a minister, so for a majority of French people, the pavilion and individual housing is the achievement of a lifetime.
In large metropolises, particularly in the Paris region, the Malthusian policy of limiting the artificialization of land for housing leads indirectly to an anti-social policy
Laurent Chalard
In France, as in the majority of developed countries, the single-family home also represents, in a way, the American dream that capitalism allows.
To question this model is to question what the French have built on.
Today, 55% of French people live in single-family homes.
Contrary to the aspirations of the French, policies seem to favor the construction of collective housing ...
Before the crisis, the collective prevailed over the individual.
In France, the market is dual: we build a lot of apartments in large cities because of the exorbitant cost of land, especially in Ile-de-France, but in the rest of the territory - medium-sized towns, small towns, the world rural - the market is dominated by single-family homes because housing is more accessible.
When the French do not favor individual housing, it is only a question of means.
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In large metropolises, especially in the Paris region, the Malthusian policy of limiting the artificialization of land for housing leads indirectly to an anti-social policy.
The cost of land, increasingly high due to the lack of building land, drives up the price per square meter.
Today, if we released the brake on the possibility of building single-family homes in Ile-de-France, real estate would fall mechanically, because the supply would be greater than today.
In the same speech that ignited the powder, the Minister of Housing cited the "yellow vests". Isn't this movement, also, the apology of a dream of habitat which has not kept its promises or, for some, which has turned into an economic and social nightmare?
Yes, in the sense that the “yellow vests” movement mainly concerned rural or peri-urban areas in which the majority of the population lives in individual housing and travels by car.
The figures show that logistics warehouses are huge consumers of space, such as very fertile agricultural areas, peripheral shopping areas and wind turbines.
Laurent Chalard
No, in the sense that the populations concerned have never questioned their mode of housing. The problem is that they were only able to access single-family homes very far from metropolitan areas, precisely because of the excessively high price of land in the city center. There were not enough offers of individual housing in the outskirts near the big cities because many municipalities have pursued Malthusian policies, they blocked their local urban plans, forcing the middle class populations to refer on more distant cities. I call it the urban space undergone. For some, the dream could turn into a nightmare because they no longer have the means to assume this lifestyle dependent on the car. The increase in the price ofessence is a disaster for those people who would have liked to live in the chosen urban space. But on average, a house has 4.8 rooms compared to 2.9 for an apartment. Collective housing as proposed does not correspond to the aspirations of the populations.
However, should we "rethink our urban planning models", as the government aspires?
Compared to some of its neighbors like the United Kingdom or Germany, France is a country with a low population density.
We have no problem with space, including in the Ile-de-France region where the soils are not artificial.
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Individual housing is being put on trial as the main responsible for the artificialisation of soils in France, which is totally false. The figures show that logistics warehouses are huge consumers of space, like very fertile agricultural areas - the Gonesse triangle would have consumed more space than a new town of tens of thousands of homes - commercial areas peripherals and wind turbines. From an economic point of view, this accusation of individual housing is nonsense, we know that a well-housed family will be happier and therefore more productive.
A policy of diffuse individual housing, on huge lots in the middle of nowhere, is not desirable but building small houses with a small garden side by side does not consume more space than large complexes, which are accompanied by very dense car parks and squares.
In short, we must get out of this ideological vision defended by the ministry and try to create dense individual housing that consumes as little space as possible.