During her handover speech on Monday, September 23, the new Minister of Housing pointed out the weight of housing in the French budget. Professionals in the sector suggested two ideas, among others, on which she had taken a position when she was a senator.
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– Valérie Létard in the Senate.
“Today, Housing represents 40% of a household budget of the middle class. For modest households, it is 50%! These comments do not come from a tenants’ defense association but from the new Minister of Housing and Urban Renewal, Valérie Létard. Comments made on the occasion of her handover of power with the outgoing Minister of Housing, Guillaume Kasbarian, this Monday, September 23. “How can we not be concerned about the cost of housing, when we know that the subject of purchasing power worries all French people, who, day by day, encounter more difficulties?”launched the minister. Recalling that “No home means no family, no job”.
Aware of the difficulties the French have in accessing housing, how does the former senator from the North, who has “learned in Valenciennois what a suffering territory is”does she intend to remedy this? Valérie Létard warns from the outset: “I will not make an announcement this week or the next.”. There is no question, in fact, of beating the Prime Minister Michel Barnier to the punch, whose date of general policy speech is not yet fixed. However, time is running out to draw up the draft finance bill for 2025, which must be tabled in the National Assembly by 1 October at the latest. “We don’t have much time,” recognizes Valérie Létard.
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No matter, the professional organizations in the sector are bringing him ideas for the 2025 Budget on a platter. Starting with an expanded zero-rate loan, which would once again finance the purchase of a single-family home and not just an apartment. And which would also once again be granted, in all territories of France and no longer exclusively in so-called tense areas, where demand for housing is much higher than supply. Another suggestion from the sector is an extension of the Pinel tax advantage for rental investment, which is due to expire on December 31, 2024.
Valérie Létard had rightly denounced this abolition of Pinel in a question posed to the government when she was a senator, on June 8, 2023, the day after the presentation of the conclusions of the National Council for the Reconstruction of Housing organized by the government. “PTZ refocused, Pinel removed… Can you assure us that home ownership will remain an opportunity offered to the greatest number and not a privilege granted to a few? How can we access property outside of metropolitan areas?”Valérie Létard had scolded in front of the Minister of Housing at the time, Olivier Klein. For the parliamentarian that she was then, “housing policy clearly seemed destined only to be a budgetary adjustment variable». A little over a year later, the new Prime Minister “considers that housing is a key priority” of the government, assures Valérie Létard.
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