Senators rejected in committee on Tuesday a bill aimed at extending the cap on rent revaluation indices for households and SMEs, auguring an identical fate in the hemicycle on Wednesday.
With this vote, our committee wants to express a powerful outburst of anger at the urgency of the housing situation, taken lightly by the government, declared the chair of the Economic Affairs Committee, Sophie Primas (LR).
The text of MP Thomas Cazenave (Renaissance) was adopted at first reading last Thursday by the National Assembly, in a stormy atmosphere, the left accusing the presidential majority of opening the door to an increase rather than freezing rents.
It proposes to renew the rent shield until the beginning of 2024: a cap on the rise in the benchmark rent index at 3.5%. Introduced in the summer of 2022, it is due to expire at the end of June 2023. A similar system caps the increase in the commercial rent index for SMEs.
With the end of the shield approaching, in a context of high inflation, the extension proposal had to be registered as a matter of urgency in order to hope to complete the parliamentary time shuttle. The government has also initiated the accelerated procedure (a reading before each chamber).
On the method, the rapporteur for the text in the Senate, Dominique Estrosi Sassone (LR), rejected legislation on the sly. Examined in unbearable time, this bill was not the subject of any consultation with the actors who, for many, were presented with a fait accompli, she criticized.
For Sophie Primas, this bill cannot exempt the government from a real housing policy, in favor of the purchasing power of the French. And it is not the announcements of the CNR Logement that make for a coherent policy, shared by the actors and effective, she added, the day after the presentation by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne of the arbitration of the executive to try to end the housing crisis.