Tribune. Six months from the end of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term, it is now possible to draw up a precise assessment. If there is a common thread since 2017 in the policy led by the President of the Republic, it is the repeated choice – and maintained despite the health crisis – to make massive savings on the backs of beneficiaries of housing assistance . This choice, never mentioned by candidate Macron during the presidential campaign, marks his five-year term with the seal of contempt for precarious workers and social injustice.
Let us first remember that the 6.6 million beneficiaries of housing assistance are not well-off; 40% of them live below the poverty line, while 26% experience a situation of overcrowding of their housing. Then let us underline that housing subsidies are not magic money: they reduce the poverty rate by two points and contribute to more than a quarter of the total reduction in the poverty rate generated by all social transfers and tax according to a study of the Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics Directorate published in September.
Cuts in APL
However, in the summer of 2017, when the government decided to abolish the solidarity tax on wealth and reduce taxation on income from assets with the “flat tax” [un prélèvement forfaitaire unique], measures representing a loss of revenue of almost 5 billion euros per year for the State, he chose to reduce personalized housing assistance (APL) by 5 euros, for an expected saving of 400 million euros per year full.
Qualified as “Ball” by the President of the Republic and” fault “ by a minister, this cut in the APL – true “original sin” of the macronie – was followed by other measures of the same ilk. In 2018, the amount of housing assistance was frozen, then undervalued in 2019 and 2020 compared to the evolution of the benchmark rent index as provided by law. Concretely, for a beneficiary receiving in September 2017 an APL of 225 euros (average monthly amount of housing aid at the time), all of these savings measures lead to a cumulative loss of APL of 500 euros over the five-year period. , that is to say more than two months of aid disappeared!
Young people particularly affected
The government also abolished the “home ownership” component of housing assistance, which benefited more than 400,000 low-income households who had become homeowners. This device had proved its worth by allowing many precarious households to buy their homes. The Court of Auditors, in a November 2016 survey, had also underlined his character “Redistributive”.
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