“Angry tenants, we are not going to let it go”: around 350 people demonstrated on Saturday afternoon in Paris to denounce rental evictions as well as a bill which risks accelerating them, noted a journalist from the AFP.
“A roof = a right” or “the street is death, housing is life”, could we read on the banners of the demonstrators, who gathered at Place de la Bastille, the day after the end of the winter break, synonymous with the resumption of rental eviction procedures.
“We denounce the return of evictions, power cuts and we demand a drop in rents and rental charges which knock out tenants in the social sector”, commented to AFP Jean-Baptiste Eyraud, spokesperson for the Association Right to Housing (DAL).
In a press release published on Saturday, the Génération.s movement (Nupes), called for “the ban on evictions without alternative accommodation throughout the year”: “we do not tolerate seeing the number of homeless people increase “.
The demonstrators were also protesting against the bill by Macronist deputy Guillaume Kasbarian, currently being examined at second reading in the National Assembly. It plans to toughen penalties against squatters and to speed up procedures in the event of unpaid rent.
For Eddie Jacquemart, president of the National Housing Confederation, this is a “societal decline”. “This law will criminalize tenants, it will contribute to the hunt for the poor orchestrated by Emmanuel Macron”, he denounced.
The Parisian demonstrators then rushed towards the Ministry of Housing.
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In the procession, Farida (assumed name) came to protest against the evictions but also against unsanitary housing, like hers.
“It’s hellish not to have decent housing, it tires me morally and physically,” she testified to AFP. She has been waiting for social housing for several years. “I’m not asking for the moon, you have to have a little humanity”.
A dozen rallies and demonstrations took place on Saturday in France in different cities, such as Lille, Montpellier and Bayonne, at the call of unions and associations for the defense of the right to housing.