French Squatters Promised National Housing Rights

Fri Jan 5 00:02:07 GMT 2007

:-)   :-)   :-)   

Good news from France today  !!!

1. http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=780&pst=451009
2. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601090&sid=adDHfoG01Yio&refer=france
3. http://www.waronterrortheboardgame.com/

Thanks !

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In France more and more impressing action against the housing crisis, 
homelessness and speculation is rising. Our old friends from DAL have 
organized another spectacular squat in Paris and built the “ministry for 
housing crisis”. New groups and movements, especially the “children of 
Don Quichotte” have organized camps with homeless.

Under the conditions of the campaigns for presidents’ elections these 
movements achieved remarkable political reactions within the past days: 
The conservative government plans to establish a legally enforceable 
right to housing,. – it would be the first in Europe (with the exception 
of Scotland). The socialist candidate Ms. Royal promises a huge social 
housing programme, intervention into the markets and even effective 
requisitions.

The press in France and even in Germany is full of these astonishing 
news which totally against the main trend in Europe.

May this become a year of a berak through of an "enforcable right to 
housing" and regulation on spcualtive markets!

Knut Unger (Germany)

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Some articles and links (French at the bottom):

Bloomberg January 3, 2007 11:01 EST

Villepin Promises French Housing Right After Homeless Protests

By Emma Vandore and Gabriele Parussini

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin 
introduced a legal right to housing, responding to growing protests over 
homelessness.

``It's a principle which puts the right to housing at the same level as 
the right to health care or education,'' de Villepin said in a press 
conference in Paris today.

Burgeoning lines of red tents have lined the banks of the Canal Saint 
Martin in central Paris since December as people answered a call by the 
charity les Enfants de Don Quichotte to leave their homes for a night to 
show solidarity with the homeless. Medecins du Monde, a doctors' 
charity, began supplying grey tents to homeless people a year ago.

President Jacques Chirac ordered the housing right during his New Year's 
eve address Dec. 31. De Villepin said the cabinet will approve a law 
Jan. 17 providing an extra 120,000 housing units per year through 2012.

The legislation, which must be voted by parliament before it adjourns 
ahead of the elections Feb. 22, will take effect from 2008 for street 
sleepers and 2012 for people in shelters.

Paris has as many as 5,000 people living on the streets, according to a 
government report published Aug. 9. That's in addition to 26,630 
homeless people in shelters in the Paris region. London has 1,500 
homeless people on the streets, and Madrid 700, according to 
Brussels-based European Federation of National Organisations Working 
with the Homeless.

France's homeless population rose to about 100,000 last year from 86,000 
in 2001, Fondation Abbe Pierre, a Paris-based non-profit group, said in 
its latest report. Shelters can house 91,675 people.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=adDHfoG01Yio&refer=europe

FT January 3 2007

France adopts Scottish policy of legal right to housing

By Martin Arnold in Paris

Published: January 3 2007 18:26 | Last updated: January 3 2007 18:26

French politicians are loath to admit they have anything to learn from 
other countries, particularly on social policy. But Dominique de 
Villepin, prime minister, on Wednesday conceded that Paris had copied 
Scotland’s legally enforceable right to housing, as he promised to 
introduce a similar measure in France.

The law would allow homeless people to sue public authorities and force 
them to provide accommodation. It follows an assertive campaign by 
homeless associations that has pushed a growing public concern up the 
political agenda four months before France’s presidential elections.

France’s interest in Scottish housing policies has surprised some 
campaigners who, in spite of long-standing close Franco-Scottish 
relations, are more accustomed to seeing the UK as a bastion of 
heartless capitalism.

…

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/716f63c0-9b55-11db-aa70-0000779e2340.html

Squatters Push Housing Rights in France

Squatters occupy Paris office building to press housing as presidential 
campaign issue

PARIS, Jan. 2, 2007 By JENNY BARCHFIELD Associated Press Writer (AP)

(AP) Homeless families and their supporters have taken over an upscale 
office building in Paris and set up a mock housing ministry in a bid to 
keep housing rights on politicians' agendas before spring presidential 
elections.

The plight of France's homeless and others living in poor conditions 
becomes a hot-button issue each winter. But with presidential elections 
on the horizon this year, it has taken on real political meaning and 
encouraged groups to take action.

A group calling itself the Children of Don Quixote recently set up tents 
for the homeless in the French capital _ and invited Parisians to spend 
the night in them. Associations made a push to register the homeless for 
the April and May two-round vote before last week's deadline.

The enthusiasm on behalf of the homeless, and those housed in cheap 
hotels, appears to be spreading.

President Jacques Chirac spoke out on the matter in his annual New 
Year's Eve address to the nation, pledging to work to "make the right to 
housing a reality." On Tuesday, the conservative government studied a 
first draft of a bill that would allow the homeless to take their 
plights to court. They hope the bill will be adopted before parliament 
ends its session Feb. 22.

Two leading presidential candidates, conservative Interior Minister 
Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Segolene Royal, have responded to 
the homeless issue. Sarkozy designated a noted lawyer to follow the 
issue, and Royal spoke by telephone with the Children of Don Quixote.

France, with a population of some 63 million, has about 86,500 homeless 
people, according to a 2001 study by the INSEE statistics agency. But 
the Abbe Pierre Foundation, which works with the homeless, estimated 
last year that the figure is closer to 150,000.

The squatters, including at least 10 families, took over the empty 
building in central Paris sometime last week, but their presence only 
became clear Monday, when a fire alarm went off, according to Yves 
Manet, deputy director general of the Lyonnaise de Banque group, which 
owns the building.

By Tuesday, families were busy outfitting the offices with bathtubs, 
showers and kitchens. Groups that organized the takeover were using some 
floors for their "ministry" to press politicians to take action.

A statement from the Right to Housing group said the action was taken on 
behalf of all those who could not find a proper dwelling, including 
people expelled from their apartments or artists with irregular incomes. 
Most of the approximately 50 people who took up residence in the office 
building had been living in cheap hotels.

Squatter organizers said the building, in a trendy neighborhood across 
the street from the old Bourse, or stock exchange, was unoccupied for 
years before they "requisitioned" it.

"We cannot accept that there are buildings that are empty while there 
are people freezing outside," said Alexandre Archenoult, a coordinator 
for Macaq, one of the three housing rights groups behind the takeover.

He said the squatters accessed the 10,800 square foot building through 
an unlocked window.

"We are going to stay here until we can find something else," said 
Hafida Sadek, a 47-year-old mother of two who was evicted from her 
apartment in September. She had been moving from cheap hotel to cheap 
hotel, she said.

"It's nice here, certainly better than out there," she said, pointing 
through the picture window to the cold rain pelting down outside.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/02/ap/world/mainD8MDF0801.shtml

NYT January 2, 2007

Middle-Class French Join Sleep-In Over Homelessness

PARIS, Jan. 1 — Hundreds of people emerged from tents beside this city’s 
Canal St.-Martin to greet the chilly New Year with a hot lunch from a 
nearby soup kitchen. But not all of them were homeless.

Dozens of otherwise well-housed, middle-class French have been spending 
nights in tents along the canal, in the 10th Arrondissement, in 
solidarity with the country’s growing number of “sans domicile fixe,” or 
“without fixed address,” the French euphemism for people living on the 
street. The bleak yet determinedly cheerful sleep-in is meant to 
embarrass the French government into doing something about the problem.

…

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/world/europe/02paris.html?em&ex=1167886800&en=8f8d7cc494bf35a5&ei=5087%0A

A new French law would make housing a basic right
Reuters Published: January 3, 2007

PARIS: A new French law would make housing an enforceable right like 
education, the government said Wednesday, after a high-profile action by 
a lobbying group forced the issue of homelessness to the top of the 
political agenda.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/03/news/france.php

ET Jan. 4, 2007

Ségolène Royal sets out campaign stall

The opposition Socialist party's presidential candidate, giving her new 
year's address in Paris before leaving for a four-day visit of China on 
Friday, said: "Housing is the first requirement for a secure family."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16468967/

Droit au Logement

Chirac promet, la lutte continue :
Réquisition d’un immeuble vide !
Paris, le 31 décembre 2006

DAL prend acte de la demande du Président de la République au 
gouvernement de faire que le droit au logement opposable et pour tous 
devienne une réalité, et qu’il avance sur ce point dans les toutes 
prochaines semaines.
Droit Au logement félicite les enfants de Don quichotte et leur action, 
sans lesquels cette déclaration Présidentielle n’aurait pas vu le jour. 
C’est aussi le résultat des luttes de mal-logés et de sans logis 
engagées depuis 20 ans.

http://www.globenet.org/dal/

Overview on movements in „Liberation“:

http://www.liberation.fr/vous/logement/226625.FR.php

L’Humanité 3 janvier 2007

Droit au logement opposable : comment l’appliquer ?

HABITAT . Après l’intervention de Jacques Chirac, l’idée fait son 
chemin. Mais sa mise en oeuvre soulève de nombreuses questions. Décryptage.

Le droit au logement opposable, évoqué par le président de la 
République, a été accueilli très favorablement par les partis 
politiques, hormis le Mouvement pour la France de Philippe de Villiers, 
pour qui ce concept « appartient typiquement au socialisme le plus 
archaïque ». Cette unanimité est également de mise chez les associations 
de lutte contre l’exclusion et le mal-logement, dont une quarantaine se 
sont même organisées en plate-forme pour le droit au logement opposable 
depuis plusieurs années. Pour autant, l’application, en France, de ce 
droit soulève des questions fondamentales. Décryptage.

http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2007-01-03/2007-01-03-843110

mercredi 3 janvier 2007, mis à jour à 19:19

La France se dote d'un droit au logement opposable Reuters

Le gouvernement annonce la mise en application progressive, d'ici 2012, 
d'un droit au logement opposable en faveur des mal-logés, répondant 
ainsi à une demande de longue date des associations relancée de manière 
spectaculaire par Les Enfants de Don Quichotte.

http://www.lexpress.fr/info/infojour/reuters.asp?id=34592

Les Don Quichotte ne lèveront pas le camp
Charlotte Menegaux (lefigaro.fr).
Publié le 03 janvier 2007

Sur le canal Saint-Martin, où plus de 200 tentes sont installées, 
l’annonce du gouvernement sur le droit au logement opposable ne change 
pas la donne. Les campeurs souhaitent obtenir d’autres garanties avant 
de quitter les lieux. Reportage.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20070103.WWW000000359_les_don_quichotte_ne_leveront_pas_le_camp.html

REUTERS jeu. janv. 4, 2007 4:25 CST25

Ségolène Royal présente son contre-programme sur le logement

http://today.reuters.fr/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-01-04T152504Z_01_GAR455318_RTRIDST_0_OFRTP-FRANCE-LOGEMENT-ROYAL-20070104.XML

Parti Socialiste

Le droit au logement opposable doit être universel

Thierry Repentin, sénateur socialiste de la Savoie, explicite le concept 
de droit au logement opposable, une idée inscrite dans le projet 
socialiste pour 2007, récemment reprise par la droite, qui s’y était 
pourtant opposé à l’Assemblée nationale… en avril 2006.

http://hebdo.parti-socialiste.fr/2007/01/04/342/

CFDT (union)

Le droit opposable,
une étape vers un droit effectif

http://www.cfdt.fr/actualite/presse/comm/comm636.htm

Libé

Le programme PS, plutôt vide sur le logement

http://www.liberation.fr/vous/logement/226610.FR.php

SNL Union (NGO)

Le droit au logement opposable présenté en conseil des ministres le 17 
janvier

http://www.snl-union.org/index.php?page=voirnews&id=277

CGL (tenants organization)

http://www.lacgl.fr/index.asp?ID=366&id_sous_menu=11

CNL
http://www.lacnl.com/index.htm