A victory for the Green MPs. The latter succeeded in having a text adopted, this Thursday, aimed at better compensating the owners of cracked houses in connection with global warming. Led by Green MP Sandrine Rousseau, the bill was adopted with 115 votes to 9, despite criticism from the government and deputies from the presidential camp once morest its main measures. It must now be considered by the Senate.
The text modifies the criteria for recognizing the state of natural disaster to increase the number of municipalities concerned by this phenomenon of movement of clay soils. In particular, it provides that the drought in question must be one of the five most serious over the last fifty years, and no longer one of the two most serious, to be considered abnormal.
To “rebalance the relationship between the insurer and the insured”, the text provides for a “presumption” that the shrinkage-swelling of the clay is the “determining cause” of the damage when a state of natural disaster linked to a drought is recognized. It is also provided that “the aggravation of a crack” during a drought recognized as a natural disaster be considered as a new element of damage giving rise to the right to compensation.
“Nightmare” of owners
“The inhabitants describe impressive noises of breaking at night”, sometimes “the doors no longer open and the windows hold thanks to props”, described in the hemicycle Sandrine Rousseau, evoking the “nightmare” of owners ” crushed in administrative procedures” and badly compensated. “10.5 million houses” are in an area exposed to these risks in France, underlined the deputy to defend her text, as part of a day reserved for her group in the Assembly.
If the deputies of all the benches supported its objective, the presidential majority, whose deputies abstained for the most part, and the government criticized the flagship measures of the text. The Minister responsible for the Digital Transition, Jean-Noël Barrot, argued that the criteria for defining a natural disaster should not be “fixed” in a law. He recalled a government order dating from February, which already plans to relax these criteria and an upcoming circular which will “expand by 20% the number” of compensated victims.
The minister in charge of SMEs, Olivia Grégoire, went to the plate, without success, once morest the measure making “the insurer bear the burden of proof that a loss is not the consequence of a phenomenon of shrinkage-inflation clays”. This provision will “extend the compensation periods” and “increase insurance premiums, to the detriment of the insured”, she pleaded. “Insurers made record profits in 2022, they have quite the shoulders to take care of that,” replied Sandrine Rousseau.