Social housing in France: A permanent and multifaceted challenge for public policies

This paper examines the dynamics of the overwhelmingly generous social housing in France that covers a wide spectrum of recipients. Being influenced by electoral power of rotating ruling parties and social ideals, policy formulations are often reflected by idealistic politics which tends to over-stretch the nation's budget and restrict its scope in reaching its target groups. From the 1990s, fund availability has been further hit by economic globalization causing falling business profitability and high unemployment rates affecting notably ethnic minorities. Upcoming social crisis has been met with public response via a series of technical-led remedial acts to promote social integration in housing and by identifying social ills and polarization in sensitive and problematic urban quarters. New technical and financial measures in coping with the complexity and magnitude of social housing are expected to remain highly challenging in the French parliamentary politics.