The president of the FNAIM likes to surprise his audience and he readily asks who made the slogan “A France of owners” popular… Well no, the first was not Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic, but Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in the same position, after his election in 1974. In short, this political desire for all French people to own the housing they occupy (because it is indeed their main residence behind this slogan) is not of today and it has a hard life.
The question is whether this desire is as timely in 2025 as it was in 2007 or 1974. We will also remember that even in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy’s housing minister had immediately qualified it, no doubt believing that the bar was set a little high, and ended up evoking a height chart at 70% -if the author’s memory is faithful. Why this nuance at the time? Two reasons: an unprecedented crisis, that of subprimehad its shock waves felt as far as France and banks no longer lent without suspicion, in the face of prices that had become very high; then, France has the particularity of having built a housing policy based on a triptychwith a social rental stockA private rental stock and a owner-occupier park. The three solutions for housing are available to households. In this context, it is difficult to see how a single solution would garner all the votes.
Fewer owners in France: a first in 30 years
A certain balance has been created among us, which others envy: it is guarantee of flexibilitya household can reversibly choose one status at one time, another at a different time, and it also constitutes a economic and social shock absorber remarkable: the status of private tenant undoubtedly rhymes better with mobility for work or studies than that of owner, that of HLM tenant is suitable for a household that is still too fragile to aspire to private rental housing or ownership. Thus, France allows what was called a residential ascending course… but also allowing for reversals of fortune. A caricature, Albania: this country holds the world record for the rate of homeowners, with 90% of households owning their home… Normal since there is no rental stock there or almost none. Does housing France want to be Albania? It is rather proud to offer several complementary paths. This diversification strategydesired since the post-war period, even if its dosage may have varied depending on the sensitivity of governments, has never been called into question by anyone.
What about today? Can we imagine increase the rate of owner-occupiers ? This rate, for the first time in thirty years, fell from 58% to 57% in a few years. The inflection of the curve is not without consequences: it increases the already very heavy demand for rentals. Except that this is not without reason, and that the France of owners, or even just an increase in the current rate remains illusory in our context. Of the interest rate which do not allow many households to switch to acquisition (this is undoubtedly a quarter or a third of households, particularly young ones, who could buy with rates of 1% and can no longer do so with rates of 3%), a degraded internal economic atmosphere and with no near prospect of recovery, an anxiety-provoking geopolitical context, an unemployment curve which is reversing and a need for great mobility essential to find a job and first of all to train, but also to heavy sociological trends with increasing separations of couples, family recompositions and a worrying number of single people, particularly elderly people.
Strengthen the rental offer and real estate investment
In short, it is the link of the rental offer which needs to be strengthened and which best corresponds to the moment, and probably for several years. It does lead to an increase in the ownership rate, but throughinvestment. For the rest, the objective, if it is more distant, must be protected: the failure of our pay-as-you-go retirement system, which our political class refuses to remedy, dictates that as many households as possible have acquired their housing at the time of cessation of activity, so that their monthly expenses are reduced and their lifestyle is not affected. Rental investment, ideally, reinforces the possible retirement income if the household was able to consolidate its assets in this way.
Political slogans are valuable. They anchor in the minds of the courses to be taken. However, circumstances lead to plasticity and we must be wary of what we could call the intoxication of the slogan. Pragmatism requires us to deal not with the headings, but with the paths and the temporality to stay the course. The greatest sailors sail like this.
