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Homeless seek right to housing

Vaiju Naravane

Shortage of accommodation finds place on the French electoral agenda

— PHOTO: AFP

A child of a homeless family in an unused bank building in Paris on Tuesday.

Paris: A row of red tents resembling polyester igloos lines the smart St. Martin Canal in Paris' upwardly mobile 10th district. An association called the Children of Don Quixote with its campaign to distribute tents to the homeless has placed the spotlight on the chronic housing shortage in France and placed the subject firmly on the electoral agenda.

In a widely publicised campaign, activists spent the night out in tents in freezing temperatures alongside the homeless and set up a mock "Housing Ministry" by squatting an unused building belonging to a bank. Makeshift camps have sprung up in the Mediterranean port of Marseille, the historic town of Orleans and — since Tuesday — in the southern cities of Lyon and Toulouse, where a dozen tents were set up in pouring rain.

With property prices going through the roof and rentals becoming increasingly difficult to find, France has an estimated 2 million homeless, many of whom are a new category of people known as the working poor. These are perfectly respectable, hard working people, holding jobs, who are unable to rent or buy because they have fixed time contracts. Banks will not give them loans and rental agencies turn them down because the minimum bail period is three years. The housing shortage caused by steep rentals and property prices is the result of a speculative boom.

Several wage earners find themselves huddling down in caravans or living in rundown hotels that rent dingy rooms at exorbitant prices. The minimum wage in France is Euro 900 per month. A studio apartment of 25 square metres costs Euro 500 per month. Many families with just one earning member find themselves living in appalling conditions, in squats or badly maintained buildings where they are fleeced by unscrupulous landlords.

For years now, activists have called on the Government to make housing an inalienable right, allowing a resident to sue the Government. This new campaign has spurred the conservative Presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy and his socialist rival Segolene Royal into making promises to ease the hardship of the homeless. Ms. Royal called for a "vast plan" against poverty and exclusion while her Right-wing rival, Mr. Sarkozy, promised that in two years' time, nobody will be sleeping in the street any more.

Key demand

In his New Year address to the nation, President Jacques Chirac promised the Government would act in the coming weeks to create a legal right to housing — one of the key demands of a charter drawn up by the protestors.

His Government has announced a Euro 70-million emergency plan for the homeless and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will be outlining new measures to the press.

According to the charity, Emmaus, one million people in France do not have a home of their own; 100,000 sleep rough, while the rest live in campsites, hotels or shelters. Another two million people are struggling with housing problems.

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