The housing crisis affects all French people

The housing crisis is not just one of the countless consequences of the deep crisis facing the French state, economy and society. It is the epicenter of an earthquake whose tremors are being felt in areas as varied as public order, education, health, democratic life and the vitality of the industrial fabric. Without going so far as to repeat the ^19th-century bourgeois adage that "those without fire or place are those without faith or law", it has to be said that poor housing condemns those it affects to economic precariousness, social demotion and uncertain citizenship, all of which in practice prevent them from "making society". Unless the housing issue is tackled radically, i.e. at its roots, no government will be able to restore the "vivre-ensemble" to which so many aspire.