It’s a proposal that has sparked outrage among tenant advocates. “Latest news on the housing front: the government plans to authorize housing whose ceiling height in the main room would be… 1.80 meters!!! Against 2.20 meters so far, there is still time to give up!“, rebels on Twitter Manuel Domergue, director of studies of the Abbé Pierre Foundation.
If the standard has been 2.20 meters since 2002 for decent housing, a draft decree might lower it by 40 centimeters, according to information from the AEF agency. This would have been examined on January 26 by the National Housing Council, to change the rules of hygiene and sanitation of housing.
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It is precisely this sentence that is at the heart of the questions: “Below 2.20 meters for the main room of 9 square meters – or a living volume at least equal to 20 cubic meters whose height is at least equal to 1.80 meters – and 2 meters for the other parts of the accommodation, the height under the ceiling constitutes an impropriety“. In other words, a dwelling of 11.11 m2, with a ceiling height of 1m80 and a volume of 20 m3 might be rented.
«Admittedly, we are only talking regarding a limited number of Parisian maids’ rooms or settlements in the North», states Manuel Domergue, «but the signal is disastrous“. The project is all the more surprising since the average height of men in France is 176.6 cm, according to the 2020 Obepi-Roche survey. New decent housing would therefore only be reserved for people under 1.80 m , and would be discriminatory. Contacted, the Ministry of Housing did not give an answer.
This controversial decree comes a few days following the publication of the 27th annual report on “the state of poor housing in France», published by the Abbé Pierre Foundation. The study counts four million peoplenot or poorly housed“and 14.6 million vulnerable individuals”by the housing crisis».
