A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #339 - Against the demolition of HLM by the ANRU: Moratorium for ongoing contested projects (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On February 7, 2024, around fifty people came to the National Agency for 
Urban Renewal (ANRU) to demand the rehabilitation of their buildings 
rather than their destruction and requested a moratorium on ongoing 
contested projects. A delegation was received by the director of Anru, 
Anne-Claire Mialot, despite her reluctance. This initiative is an 
encouraging first; housing activists, architects, town planners, more 
than 700 people in total from 45 associations or tenants' associations 
from all over France, have decided to unite, and make their voices heard 
to rethink everything and invent other solution.

Far from the clichés about social housing, residents of working-class 
neighborhoods are fighting to save their city, save their history, and 
preserve working-class heritage. The majority of the population earns 
pitiful salaries around the minimum wage and bleeds themselves to have a 
roof over their heads, not to mention the precarious, those who struggle 
and sleep outside.
Toulouse, Grenoble, Marseille, Lille, Roubaix, Amiens, Chatenay-Malabry, 
les Franmoisins, Aubervilliers... around fifty collectives of residents 
of working-class neighborhoods and associations organized a rally in 
front of the Anru headquarters, as well as a press conference in the 
afternoon as well as a working meeting immediately to protest and act 
against the demolition of their neighborhoods and to request a 
moratorium on the contested projects in progress.
In its founding appeal launched in mid-November, the Stop aux 
demolitions Anru collective denounces an aberrant logic from a social, 
financial, urban planning, architectural and ecological point of view.
Many architects have joined the protest of tenant defense associations, 
the CNL (National Housing Confederation), the DAL (Right to housing), 
the APPUI, Pas sans nous... For decades the tenants of the cities HLM 
aimed at projects to destroy their habitat, their neighborhoods, faced 
only the town halls, the developers and the ANRU who passed the buck. 
This grouping is a first commitment in the fight necessary to safeguard 
working-class housing and develop it.
The agency, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, is 
singled out for its vast urban renewal projects which smack of 
gentrification, and for its policy of destroying social housing. Anru is 
a state organization which is supposed to rehabilitate social housing. 
but which makes its financing subject to the destruction of a large part 
of them. It is also, a lucrative novelty, the possibility given to 
private individuals to buy entire sections of social housing. This 
policy, in the long term, signals the disappearance of truly social 
housing. While two million tenants, eligible for HLM, are waiting for 
dignified and affordable housing, the State is destroying them instead 
of prioritizing their rehabilitation and is not proposing any major 
social housing construction projects. From 2004 to 2021, through the 
National Urban Renewal Program (PNRU) then the New National Urban 
Renewal Program (NPNRU), the ANRU made its funding subject to the 
demolition of 164,000
social housing to rebuild 142,000, not always very social, therefore 
22,000 fewer social housing units. And this, at a time when the housing 
crisis is more severe than ever: France has 333,000 homeless people and 
2.4 million households waiting for social housing.
Each modification of urban space must theoretically be accompanied by 
consultation with residents. The legally obligatory consultation is 
purely formal, "co-construction is an empty word, decisions are taken in 
advance. A tenant from Amiens says that in his neighborhood, the 
consultation began the evening of the prefectural decree which announced 
the demolition. And it's the same practices, the same logic everywhere:
For example in La Planoise in Besançon where there are 6,000 social 
housing units. Around 1,200 will be demolished even though they are in 
fairly good condition. A way of removing the poor for the municipality 
which intends to rebuild housing intended for wealthier households. 
Under the cover of social diversity, the most precarious are expelled 
ever further from city centers even though they have been living there 
for years. In Vaulx-en-Velin near Lyon, more than 1,600 social housing 
units were destroyed to build private housing. The Lille collective De 
L'Air denounces the destruction of 150 homes out of the 320 in the 
Aviateurs building, in the Bois-Blancs district.

Anru is legally required to rebuild what is destroyed, reconstitute the 
"one for one" supply of social housing but authorizes them to be rebuilt 
elsewhere, displacing residents and increasing rents by changing their 
category. In Evreux, the majority of the 700 housing units rebuilt (out 
of 900 demolished) were done outside the neighborhood, leaving the 
poorest among them. The neighborhood has been stripped of its integrated 
population, the wealthiest, with a car and a capacity for initiative. 
The tendency of social landlords is to let buildings deteriorate when 
they know that they will be demolished, even in the long term. "As they 
don't maintain the pipes, we have cases of Legionnaires' disease. And 
why do you think there are rats and cockroaches?»
Architects for the defense of Candilis heritage at Mirail in Toulouse; 
"while the homeless are multiplying on the streets, there is less and 
less construction of new social housing and yet there is very high 
quality housing doomed to demolition in contradiction with common sense 
and the general interest. We must renovate without demolishing.»
In Bordeaux there was an exemplary and inventive rehabilitation without 
Anru who wanted to destroy it against the advice of the municipality; 
with an addition of a glass roof which extended the one-room apartment.
For ten years the popular town planning workshop of Villeneuve de 
Grenoble has been fighting against the proposed demolition of a 
working-class neighborhood. "Created to break down social housing, to 
grab land in metropolises, to financialize housing. The Anru is a war 
machine that dislocates lives, that kills people. We've had enough of 
the Anru! We must fight to impose another housing policy based on the 
wishes and interests of residents and not on those of bosses, 
developers, financiers. We want quality housing, schools, shops, 
amenities, public services."
In Nanterre, "it's a third of the Tours Aillaud district; better known 
as the cloud towers near La Défense which will be sold to a billionaire 
developer. It is the common good that is sold off to the private sector. 
We fought, but we were alone and we lost.»
In Amiens, "a third of the 3,000 HLM housing units will be demolished 
without any consultation. The social landlord says that he meets the 
demands of the mayor and Anru, the mayor tells us that she is obliged by 
Anru, Anru tells us that it is the mayor... we are being fooled . Thanks 
to Pas sans nous and Support we have learned to mobilize. Our plans were 
swept away. Today we are happy to be able to learn from the experiences 
of others.»
Le Franc Moisin of Saint Denis, "an urban renovation plan when it falls 
on a neighborhood, we don't know what to do; still happy that there was 
support. We are told that 500 homes will be destroyed, you will be 
displaced. We don't know the technical words. What we want is a 
dignified housing policy, we have become experts, we know what we want 
for our neighborhood. We built our neighborhood. People have sometimes 
lived there for decades, and people come to explain to us that we no 
longer have a place there because we are penniless. We decided to fight, 
to hold citizen referendums, urban walks, meetings in schools... Out of 
the 500 homes, we were able to save 100. They are clever and vicious and 
we put in a review clause; that means we have to go back into battle. 
Our enemy is Anru which massacres, which alienates, which gentrifies. We 
pay our rent, we pay utilities and we are not good enough for them! They 
are doing disgusting renovations and increasing our rents. We are here, 
we stay here and we are not leaving! We will have to stand hand in hand. 
Anru will not be done without the inhabitants"
The architects present join forces to ask to stop making demolition the 
prerequisite for any urban renovation operation. They denounce the 
planned erasure of popular heritage, often of high architectural 
quality, such as the Maladrerie in Aubervilliers or the Butte rouge in 
Châtenay-Malabry. The grandson of the architect who built the Butte 
rouge in Chatenay-Malabry remains mobilized with local associations to 
defend "the best for the working class", "We demolish a lot, which is 
not necessary. We can transform. The town hall considers that there is 
too much social housing and it wants to build for more fortunate 
populations.

The renovations carried out will not benefit current residents. The Red 
Butte is a model of architecture visited by architects from all over the 
world, a popular heritage with its green spaces, its low buildings, its 
allotment gardens. We have been fighting for 10 years but we have only 
limited the damage. From total demolition we managed to protect more 
than 50% of the city. Anru doesn't care about heritage, it just does a 
calculation on Excel and plans 1000 more housing units.»
Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing; "in Roubaix there are three districts which 
are concerned, the most emblematic is the Alma-gare In 70, 80 a 
renovation took place in consultation with the inhabitants, all of 
Europe came to see this exemplary operation and today Today, Anru plans 
to demolish nearly 600 homes and rebuild only 89. Alma-gare is very good 
quality social housing, with on-site facilities, daycare, home for the 
elderly , school, gym, located near the city center of Roubaix. The 
Peuls in Lille are a historic district, a series of courtyards, 
traditional textile workers' houses, with a strong heritage and social 
interest rebuilt in the 70s and now the town hall has decided to 
demolish all that with Anru . The population is ordered to move further 
and further away, where there is even less work.»

Jean Baptiste Ayraud of the DAL: "We want the right to housing for all. 
We want to stop the demolitions of social housing, we also need housing 
for the poorly housed, the homeless, those who are slowly dying in the 
street, those who are threatened with evictions. For thirty years we 
have been chasing the working classes to make money, to feed rental 
income, real estate speculation, to feed expensive housing, the cause of 
the crisis we are going through. Firing the poor also means keeping away 
the dangerous classes. Real social purifiers; in addition to the 160,000 
destructions of social housing organized by Anru, we must add the 
100,000 destructions decided by mayors with the agreement of the 
prefectures, and all of this of course in tense areas, speculative 
areas. Don't let us do this anymore, we have to get organized!»

The latest so-called Kasparian law gives exorbitant power to mayors to 
allocate social housing; this practice makes it possible to legalize the 
clientelism already in vogue in the suburbs. These cities are our 
popular heritage, our social history, our common good. They are our 
places of life, our memories, our links, our solidarity. These forced 
demolitions remind us that for developers and for the State we are from 
nowhere, that precariousness can extend to all spheres of our existence. 
Without roots, the State can move us wherever it wants. Our old people, 
who have lived for decades, are dying from it. All testimonies confirm 
that elderly people do not survive their expulsions. An 88-year-old old 
lady, relocated by Anru outside the Planoise district where she had 
always lived, despite her magnificent apartment, has died. As for her 
96-year-old neighbor, placed in a senior residence by her children, 
lasted six months.
As for the alleged social diversity which would justify expulsions and 
destruction; one might wonder why this concern exclusively affects 
neighborhoods to be gentrified.
The only real question that needs to be asked is how many m2 were 
demolished in tense areas for less than 6 euros per square meter, that 
is to say in PLAI (assisted rental loan for integration) for how many 
were rebuilt on the same criteria? Most have been rebuilt in PLS or PLI 
(Social Rental Loan or Intermediate Rental Loan), at 10 euros per square 
meter and more.
The population is becoming impoverished and is finding it increasingly 
difficult to find housing in both the private and public sectors. The 
majority of housing built remains inaccessible for the working classes. 
The fight for dignified housing, for the preservation of cities and 
their rehabilitation with residents at the same prices, for the 
construction of truly social housing is a priority fight too often 
forgotten that this group of associations is trying to lead.

Nadia M

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4133
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