Paris: Dati accuses Hidalgo of being a real estate “speculator”
In the midst of a crisis, housing is starting to get politicians talking. In Paris, Rachida Dati accuses, with five right-wing mayors, Anne Hidalgo to speculate. If ten thousand inhabitants have fled the capital each year for almost 10 years, it is the fault of the mayor of Paris. “The City obviously places the responsibility for this leak on the sole law of the real estate market, which avoids any questioning because, if there is a speculator in the case, it is first of all Anne Hidalgo“, denounce Rachida Dati and five other district mayors (Jean-Pierre Lecoq, 6th, Jeanne D’Hauteserre, 8th, Philippe Goujon, 15th, Francis Szpiner, 16th, and Geoffroy Boulard, 17th) in a column published in Le Point.
The six signatories point the finger “the property eviction effect” caused by “the pre-emption at a gold price of housingwhich, they say, “rarefies the private offer“. Who says rare offer, says rising prices. Right-wing elected officials refer to the transformation of free housing into HLM. A classic arrangement – called approved housing – used frequently by the town hall of Paris that its opponents do not hesitate to describe as “smokingand intended to increase the number of social housing units in the capital. “Since 2014, two-thirds of the social housing built has only been the transformation of free housing into social housing“say the right-wing opponents.
“Give up the politics of numbers”
By 2035, Anne Hidalgo aims for 40% of “public housing” including 30% social housing and 10% intermediate housing. Currently, Paris has around 25% of financed HLMs. The mayor of Paris hopes to achieve its objective thanks to the revision of the local urban plan – the last dating from 2006 – which must present the future face of the capital and must be examined by the Council of Paris on June 5. “The policy of the mayor of Paris, apparently very social, in fact destroys any mix for buildings and entire districts, mainly in the center and north-east of Paris.“, criticize the authors of the forum.
And, according to them, it is the middle classes who are the big losers of this policy by suffering the rise in real estate prices and the soaring property tax and “by being excluded from the public housing offer“. Because these households are too rich to live there and not enough to live in private accommodation. The fault of thesocialization of the real estate market in a city attracting an increasingly international clienteleThat criticizes right-wing elected officials. “Only the wealthiest and most assisted will soon be able to find accommodation in Paris, preventing the working and middle classes from settling there permanently. And to strike at the mayor of Paris: “We must give up the politics of figures to provide better housing and those who make Paris live“.
