“Social” Housing in France, 1950-1973: The Origins of Suburban Crisis
Sonya Ursell
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor’s Degree in History
Pomona College
April 8, 2011
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my deepest thanks to my readers, Professor Kates and Professor Pouzet- Duzer: the former, whose French Revolution seminar inspired me to become a history major; the latter, for French classes that made me love France even more. Both have been incredibly supportive and patient throughout this process.
I would also like to thank Professor Gary Wilder for introducing me to the story of postcolonial France, the entire Pomona College History Department for urging me to think and write critically, and my family for patiently tolerating the drama that they were unsuspectingly dragged into.
Pour moi, c’était la luxe…tous les gens était heureux d’être là-bas… C’était la belle vie. C’était l’Amérique.
-reflections on life in the new grands ensembles at La Courneuve
Table of Contents
Abstract i Illustrations iii
Chapter One: The Origins of Social Housing 1
Chapter Two: Literature on Social and Suburban Housing in France 14
Chapter Three: Residents of the grands ensembles and HLM Social Housing 25
Chapter Four: Gaullist Politics and HLM 37
Conclusion: Contemporary Implications of HLM 54
Bibliography 57
ABSTRACT In response to the postwar housing crisis in France, state intervention from 1950 to 1973 produced the grands ensembles housing projects, administered in part by the HLM social housing program. In 2005, riots erupted throughout suburban HLM in response to the ghettoization of the housing projects today. This paper returns to the origins of HLM when the implications of collective social housing were still being determined; specifically, the period of construction between the formal establishment of the HLM program in 1950 and the state’s abandonment of the grands ensembles building projects in 1973. I argue that, beyond social and design weaknesses of the grands ensembles, the failure of massive HLM as a long-term housing solution originated in its administration during the “Thirty Glorious Years” and specifically during the first years of the Gaullist Fifth Republic. Chapter one contextualizes the massive HLM constructions with a brief overview of the “Thirty Glorious Years,” the causes of the postwar housing crisis, and the origin of collective social housing in France. Chapter two discusses the existing literature on social and suburban forms of French housing and presents my own approach to the subject. Chapter three describes the residents of HLM – suggesting therefore who was excluded – and the inadequacies of the living environment in the grands ensembles. Chapter four deals with the role of the Gaullist government in housing policy at this time, the decisions it made and the reasons behind its policies.
i
Chapter One: The Origins of Social Housing
By 1975, France barely resembled the country it was at the end of World War II in 1945.
Over the course of “Thirty Glorious Years,”1 the country experienced profound political, economic, and social changes that touched almost every aspect of daily life. During this period, the French administration changed significantly both at home and abroad. The current Fifth
Republic was established in 1958, bringing an abrupt end to the Fourth Republic that had lasted only 12 years.2 The “Thirty Glorious Years” also saw the end of the French empire overseas:
Indochina achieved independence in 1954, followed by Algeria in 1962.3 The end of colonialism ultimately contributed to France’s turmoil because new and former French citizens hesitated between national identities; in addition, traditional republican values and the meaning of
“citizenship” adjusted to a postcolonial France.4 In addition, student and worker uprisings in
1968 directly challenged French political, economic, and social institutions, further questioning existing notions of “Frenchness.”
Given these upheavals, the term “Thirty Glorious Years” perhaps refers better to France’s economic recovery after World War II. In response to the recent wars, many European states embraced the philosophy of a “social state” in which “the physical and moral condition of the citizenry was a matter of common interest and therefore part of the responsibility of the state.”5
Consequently, there was an expectation that the government would “provide not only the institutions and services necessary…but also…improve the condition of the population…”6
1 The term was first used by Jean Fourastié in 1979 to describe the period from 1946 to 1975 in France. See: Les trente glorieuses: ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975 (Paris: Fayard, 1979). 2 Robert Gildea, France Since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 40, 52. 3 Ibid., 24, 32. 4 See, for example, Todd Shepard’s discussion of social and political changes in France following the Algerian war in The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008). 5 Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 72. 6 Ibid., 77.
1
Fearing that Communism would attract those frustrated or daunted by reconstruction efforts, the
United States helped fund Europe’s recovery. Between 1948 and 1951, a devastated Europe accepted $12.5 billion in American aid under the Marshall plan, of which France accepted 20 percent.7 France used these funds to boost investment, fight postwar inflation, and increase foreign trade, spurring three decades of considerable economic growth.8 Between 1959 and
1971, France saw an annual rate of growth averaging 5.8 percent, the highest among Western economies.9 This prosperity produced social change as well by encouraging growth of the middle class and the emergence of a consumer-driven working class.10 During the “Thirty Glorious
Years,” France became a consumerist society; from 1959 to 1973, consumption increased 4.5 percent each year.11 The OPEC oil crisis in 1973, however, prompted severe inflation and only intensified the impact of already decreasing rates of investment and exportation.12 The recession that began that year marks the end of the “Thirty Glorious Years” in France.
These changes affected almost every aspect of French society, including its built environment. New architectural philosophies, shaped by the modernism of Le Corbusier, changed the way buildings and cities were conceived, their purpose, and their construction.13 The notion of suitable housing, in particular, changed dramatically during the “Thirty Glorious
Years.” Faced with a severe housing crisis, French politicians, planners, and architects were heavily influenced by Corbusian ideas in their effort to provide mass housing. Their solution, the grands ensembles, permanently altered the French landscape and the French city. Furthermore, the social housing administrated by the state within the grands ensembles represents a significant
7 Diane Kunz, “The Marshall Plan Reconsidered: A Complex of Motives,” Foreign Affairs (1997): 168. 8 Gildea, France Since 1945, 98-100. 9 Ibid., 101. See also: John Girling, France: Political and Social Change (New York: Routledge, 1998), 11. 10 Girling, Political and Social Change, 10. 11 Ibid., 11. 12 Ibid., 110, 112-113. 13 See, for example, Le Corbusier’s discussion of modern cities in Looking at City Planning, trans. Eleanor Levieux (New York: Grossman, 1971).
2
intersection between French politics, economics, and social relations during that time. These housing projects were an experiment in architectural design and government intervention that ultimately questioned the social function of housing.
Collective housing was not a novel idea in France when the state-sponsored grands ensembles were built after World War II. In 1822, the philosopher Charles Fourier published the
Traité de l’association domestique-agricole, later known as the Théorie de l’unité universelle, that presented a utopian vision of communal living. According to Fourier, the ideal lifestyle could be achieved in a Phalanx, or a community of 1500 to 1600 people that lived together in a large building called a Phalanstère.14 The Phalanstère was to include dining and meeting rooms, a temple, and “large halls for social relations,” among other public facilities.15 In this way,
Fourier acknowledged social needs of residential spaces, an idea that was later ignored by the architects of the grands ensembles. Similarly, more than a century before social housing in the grands ensembles encouraged the mingling of different social classes, Fourier promoted a similar idea: he wrote that “[t]he 1500 or 1600 people brought together will be in a state of graduated inequality as to wealth, age, personality, and theoretical and practical knowledge. The group should be as varied as possible; for the greater the variety in the passions and faculties of the members, the easier it will be to harmonize them in a limited amount of time.”16 Living arrangements in the Phalanstère were crucial in order to achieve social mixing: in Le nouveau monde industriel, published in 1829, Fourier argued that “[t]he relationship between private apartments is, however, of the utmost importance. It must of course be effected serially, so as to avoid separating the rich and the poor; on the contrary, their association must be fostered by a
14 Jonathan Beecher, Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 235, 240. 15 Ibid., 240-241. 16 Ibid., 235-236.
3
system of rent fixing, on a ‘compound’ scale…”17 In other words, rent-controlled apartments could bring together “the rich and the poor,” who would then live in harmony. Although
Fourier’s Phalanx was never fully realized,18 many aspects of his vision appeared later in the grands ensembles and further disproved the practicality of his idea.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, working-class housing in France was both unsanitary and insufficient. Initial efforts to systematically address the crisis were led by philanthropists who met at the 1889 World Fair in Paris to discuss “reforms related to workers and measures to take in order to improve their material and moral situation.” The following year,
Henry Fleury-Ravarin established the Société française d’habitations à bon marché and argued that the state should intervene in the problem of working-class housing. Fleury-Ravarin’s Societé inspired deputy Jules Siegfried to propose what became the Siegfried Law of 1894 (later modified in 1896). That legislation created local committees to publicize and facilitate the construction of habitations à bon marché (HBM), or inexpensive housing, by the private sociétés, whose projects were exempt from various state taxes. The Siegfried Law marked the first instance of state intervention in housing construction.19
Following several modifications to the 1896 legislation, the state established its own
HBM program in 1912.20 In contrast to the Siegfried Law, the 1912 law created public offices to build and manage HBM construction projects.21 The HBM program allowed tenants to purchase their housing unit through artificially low installments.22 Initially, HBM constructions were not
17 Quoted in Michael Spencer, Charles Fourier (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981), 72. 18 During Fourier’s lifetime, only one effort was made in 1833 to construct a Phalanx. However, even he admitted it was a failure when it was only in the construction stage. Source: Beecher, Charles Fourier, 20. 19 Henri Biget, Le logement de l’ouvrier: étude de la législation des habitations à bon marche en France et à l’étranger (Paris: Jouve, 1913), 221-223, 225-226. 20 Henri Sellier and A. Bruggeman, Le problème du logement, son influence sur les conditions de l'habitation et l'aménagement des villes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927), 99. 21 Biget, Le logement, 235. 22 Sellier, Le problème, 99-100.
4
radical design projects: some were actually individual houses, and even larger complexes incorporated aspects of traditional architecture, such as brick construction and gothic elements.23
The architecture of these housing projects also relied heavily on the idea of the cité-jardin that incorporated large green spaces into residential areas.24 In this way, initial HBM constructions conformed to traditional notions of French housing that the grands ensembles later ignored. By the 1930s, however, HBM constructions had evolved into large-scale collective housing projects that experimented with the use of standardized and prefabricated elements, foreshadowing the building techniques used after World War II.25 300,000 housing units were ultimately built by the HBM program between 1919 and 1939.26
The devastation of World War II only compounded the consequences of a growing urban population and years of rent-freezing legislation. By 1945, more than 2 million buildings were damaged or destroyed in France, including a quarter of existing housing.27 Destruction was most severe in the French countryside, where small cities had been targeted by both German and
Allied forces; in the Western port city of Saint-Nazaire, for example, only 100 buildings of 8,000 remained undamaged at the end of the war.28 And although damage in the Parisian region represented only 2% of all destruction in France, it still suffered significant damage that required
23 Claude Loupiac and Christine Mengin, L’architecture moderne en France (tome 1: 1889-1940) (Paris: Picard, 1997), 219-220. 24 Ibid., 217. 25 Although built as HBM in 1934, the architecture of the Cité de la Muette (located in a suburb north of Paris), incorporates towers and uniform block housing that clearly prefigure the design of later grands ensembles. Source: Loupiac and Mengin, L’architecture moderne, 221. 26 Ibid., 217. 27 Rosemary Wakeman, “Reconstruction and the Self-help Housing Movement: The French Experience,” Housing Studies (1999): 355. According to Tony Judt, 20% of French housing was completely destroyed. Source: Judt, Postwar, 82. 28 Hugh Clout, “Place Annihilation and Urban Reconstruction: The Experience of Four Towns in Brittany, 1940 to 1960,” Geografiska Annaler (2000): 167. Clout’s work discusses the destruction and reconstruction of towns in Brittany, Normandy, and Paris. See also: “Destruction and Revival: The Example of Calvados and Caen, 1940- 1965” and “Ruins and Revival: Paris in the Aftermath of the Second World War.”
5
reconstruction.29 More than 7,000 buildings had been completely destroyed and almost 60,000 were partially damaged; these included 12,700 destroyed residential units and 132,000 damaged units.30
Reconstruction was not a process unique to France, as most of Europe lay in ruins after
World War II, and other countries also experienced housing shortages.31 France frequently compared its progress to that of its neighbors. In 1950, the director of construction at the
Ministry of Reconstruction and Urbanism drew attention to France’s inferior building rate; using an index of construction referring to the number of housing units built per year and per 1,000 people, Jean Kérisel pointed out that Sweden had an index of 7.8, England an index of 6, while
France lagged behind at 1.25.32 Compared to other European countries, the French building industry was hindered by high costs and inefficiencies: “construction of a typical house in
England took 2,080 hours of labor and was finished after one year, while it took 3,000 hours and more than two years of construction in France.”33 By the 1960s, however, the French building industry had improved dramatically and construction periods were significantly lower, due in part to repetitive use of architectural plans for grands ensembles, the standardization of products, and the prefabrication of construction parts.34
Another cause of the postwar housing crisis was a population boom that created additional housing needs. Between 1946 and 1968, the total French population grew from
29 Hugh Clout, “Ruins and Revival: Paris in the Aftermath of the Second World War,” Landscape Research (2004): 126. 30 Ibid., 122. 31 For example, 40% of German housing and 30% of British housing was destroyed during the war. Source: Judt, Postwar, 82. 32 Danièle Voldman, “La loi de 1948 sur les loyers,” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire (1988): 94. 33 Sabine Effosse, “L’enjeu économique de l’habitat collectif en France au temps des Trente Glorieuses,” Revue du Nord (2009): 557. 34 Christine Mengin, “La solution des grands ensembles,” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire (1999): 109.
6
40,506,639 to 49,780,543.35 This swell was due in part to the postwar baby boom, when the number of total births per year jumped from 645,900 in 1945 to 843,900 births in 1946;36 there were almost 200,000 more babies than previous years. Therefore, by 1965 this generation was approaching its twenties and demanded more housing than ever before. The increasing French population was also due to higher immigration from other countries, both from Europe and from former French colonies in North Africa. In 1954, there were 1,765,298 foreign immigrants living in France; by 1968, there were 2,621,088; by 1975, that total had reached 3,442,415.37
The severity of the population boom was amplified by the movement of French populations and foreign immigrants from the provinces to concentrated metropolitan areas.38
This trend was partly due to structural changes in the French agricultural economy, such as expensive modernization efforts, that made farming an unproductive and unattractive career.39 In
1946, there were 7.4 million active farmers; by 1975, there were only 2 million.40 Cities could not absorb all the baby boomers, immigrants, and migrants that demanded urban housing. Paris was particularly affected by this movement: in 1946, the population of the Ile-de-France metropolitan region was 6,597,930; by 1968, it was 9,248,631.41 In the early 1960s, 120,000
French provincials moved to Paris each year.42 Furthermore, more foreign immigrants moved to
35 “Population en France Métropolitaine,” INSEE, 4 Mar. 2011
7
Paris than to any other region in France. In 1954, there were 379,560 foreign immigrants living in the capital; by 1962, there were 575,138; by 1968, that total had reached 817,828.43
Wartime destruction and the postwar baby boom only intensified the housing problems that had existed well before World War II.44 The state established rent controls at the end of
World War I to help renters: a 1919 law suspended payment of installments due beginning
August 1, 1914 until April 24, 1920; after that date, payments resumed at pre-1914 rates.45
However, these rent freezes ultimately hurt the French housing market by discouraging private investment in maintenance and new construction.46 While rents were frozen, building was no longer profitable; in 1939, building only returned a one percent profit.47 Consequently, even the housing that existed before World War II was in bad condition. At the start of the war in 1939,
2.6 million out of 13 million surveyed housing units were considered dilapidated.48 Poor housing quality before World War II worsened the later housing crisis because even dilapidated housing that remained undamaged still needed renovation. In 1948, the government attempted to repair the damage of interwar rent freezes, yet still “find a compromise between the interests of renters and owners.” Consequently, the legislation passed that year “maintained rent freezes on buildings constructed before 1949 and freed the rents of future buildings in order to encourage the return of investors.”49 Unfortunately, this act was ineffective at stimulating the private
43 “Étrangers selon la région de résidence de 1946 à 1999,” INSEE, 4 Mar. 2011
8
housing market, and it was state investment that enabled construction growth for the next thirty years.50
However, even immediate reconstruction efforts did not address the housing crisis. The priority of state reconstruction was instead industry, transportation, and productivity, and
“housing was only considered partially within reconstruction. In spite of severe housing needs owing to dilapidated and unhealthy conditions in older buildings, only housing needs due to wartime destruction (20%) were taken into consideration.”51 Consequently, state-sponsored housing projects in France immediately following the war progressed slowly. By the end of
1949, only 589 housing units—not buildings—had been reconstructed in the Parisian region.52 In
1952, one third of families requiring Parisian housing in 1945 were still in need.53
To effectively address the housing shortage, the French state sponsored the construction of grands ensembles, massive housing projects, in the suburbs surrounding large French cities.
Although the term was originally used by Maurice Rotival in an architecture magazine in 1935, it was not widely used until Adrien Spinetta, the director of Construction in the Ministry of
Reconstruction and Urbanism, repeated it in the same magazine in 1953.54 The official definition of a grands ensembles was a collection of at least 500 living units built according to one construction permit, with conceptual unity; large collections of housing built by individuals did not constitute a grands ensembles.55 The complexes built during the 1950s, 1960s, and early
1970s evolved from previous HBM projects by increasing living density, using modern construction methods and materials, and featuring a modern aesthetic, such as minimalist and
50 Bruno Vayssière, Reconstruction, Déconstruction: le hard French, ou l’architecture française des trente glorieuses (Paris: Picard, 1988), 27. 51 Effosse, “L’enjeu économique,” 555. 52 Clout, “Ruins and Revival,” 136. 53 Wakeman, “Reconstruction,” 357. 54 Mengin, “La solution,” 106. 55 Paul Clerc, Grands ensembles, banlieues nouvelles: enquête démographique et psycho-sociologique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1967) 14.
9
uniform facades. The social environment of the grands ensembles was also distinctive from previous forms of housing: even by 1963, the psycho-sociologist René Kaës had noticed that
“the grand ensemble is also defined by the new psychological and social problems it poses as a result of the simultaneous construction of housing in collective buildings in a place far from an urban center and devoid of facilities, the uprooting that its residents are subjected to, and its particular demographic and social structures.”56
HBM were ultimately architectural precursors to the grands ensembles, but the form of state involvement switched in 1950 from subsidized purchases to subsidized rents. Habitation à
Loyer Modéré (HLM) signified rent-controlled housing, and was implemented by both public and private organizations with state aid. In other words, HLM is a term that describes the particular administration of social housing in grands ensembles. In other words, while all HLM built during the “Thirty Glorious Years” was found in the grands ensembles, not all housing in the grands ensembles was part of the HLM program. Most grands ensembles were built by both public and private organizations and either fully or partly funded by the state. 57 Consequently, different grands ensembles, and even different buildings within the same complex, were administered by different organizations such as cooperatives, company-owned housing, and private investors.58 All grands ensembles were built to provide mass housing, but different sites functioned differently. This study focuses on the grands ensembles that were built on the outskirts of large cities and were intended to accommodate workers as well as families forced to
56 René Kaës, Vivre dans les grands ensembles (Paris: Les Editions Ouvriers, 1963), 46. 57 Pierre Merlin, New Towns: Regional Planning and Development, trans. Margaret Sparks (London: Methuen, 1971) 142. 58 Kaës, Vivre, 49.
10
leave unsanitary housing.59 The complex at Poissy (located in a suburb west of Paris), for example, reserved 73% of housing for the employees of the new Simca automobile plant.60
The new constructions during the “Thirty Glorious Years” symbolized a modern France, especially compared to postwar living conditions. In 1947, 3.5 million housing units that remained intact during the war were still considered “dilapidated”; furthermore, “Paris alone counted over 40,000 homes that qualified as slum dwellings.”61 The postwar housing crisis became an opportunity to modernize dilapidated housing by building new housing. An urbanist writing for a 1962 magazine issue on the grands ensembles argued that the new housing projects responded to “the needs of a modern, urban civilization.”62 He contrasted the new constructions with existing “property holdings [that] are outdated, uncomfortable, and no longer correspond to the actual needs of a population whose standard of living is improving.”63 In 1958, the Minister of Construction noted that “modern urbanism…permit[s] a reconsideration of the traditional conception of cities…the living unit, by its cultural, interactive, and leisure centers, must create a haven of peace and tranquility for the modern man.”64
The collective housing experiment in France proposed a new lifestyle that questioned the relationship between man and his built living environment. Literature agrees that although “[t]he grands ensembles solved the housing crisis in a quantitative sense…they led quickly to qualitative social problems…”65 The grands ensembles revealed that adequate housing meant much more than simple shelter or modern amenities; it had a social dimension as well, requiring
59 Ibid., 42. Kaës uses the French term quartiers nouveaux ajoutés to describe these particular housing projects. He also describes two other types of grands ensembles – villes neuves and quartiers renovés – that are not discussed in this study. 60 Annie Fourcaut, “Les premiers grands ensembles en région parisienne: ne pas refaire la banlieue?” French Historical Studies (2004): 203. 61 Newsome, French Urban Planning, 84. 62 Veyssiere, “Les causes,” 6. 63 Ibid., 7. 64 Mengin, “La solution,” 111. 65 Newsome, French Urban Planning, 83.
11
amusements, privacy, and interaction among residents. By the end of the “Thirty Glorious
Years,” the government admitted that the grands ensembles housing projects were unsatisfactory living conditions. By 1973, “popular dissatisfaction with the grands ensembles” led the Minister of Construction, Olivier Guichard, to stop their construction.66 The act declared the end of the grands ensembles’ architecture: building length, height, and living density resembling those of the grands ensembles were prohibited.67 By 1977, more than half of housing being built was individual homes, thus marking the end of the collective housing experiment.68
Implications of the grands ensembles are still felt in France today; the massive housing constructed during the “Thirty Glorious Years” has not ceased to pose social problems for its residents and remains the chagrin of architects, urban planners, and politicians alike. In 2005, riots erupted across France after two boys were electrocuted as they fled from police in Clichy- sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris. The living conditions of massive HLM were quickly associated with the civil unrest: “The problem of the French suburbs is one of segregation. It is an economic segregation superimposed on an ethnic ghettoization. Where did this problem come from? It came from the origin of the suburbs.”69 Even international press reported that “France's housing projects, as we now know, became machines for alienation.”70
This study returns to “the origin of the suburbs,” when its social implications were still being determined; specifically, the period of construction between the formal establishment of the HLM program in 1950 and the state’s abandonment of the grands ensembles building
66 W. Brian Newsome, “The Rise of the Grands Ensembles: Government, Business, and Housing in Postwar France,” Historian (2004): 816. 67 Frédéric Dufaux and Annie Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles (Paris: Créaphis, 2004), 8. 68 Jean-Paul Flamand, Loger le peuple: essai sur l'histoire du logement social en France (Paris: La Découverte, 1989), 305. 69 Elisabeth Vallet, “Emeutes en France: la haine, ou l’histoire d’une ségrégation,” Le Devoir, November 10, 2005, accessed April 8, 2011, http://www.ledevoir.com/international/europe/94682/emeutes-en-france-la-haine-ou-l- histoire-d-une-segregation. 70 Christopher Caldwell, “Revolting High Rises,” New York Times, November 27, 2005, accessed March 17, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/magazine/27wwln_essay.html?scp=10&sq=france%20riots%202005&st=cse.
12
projects in 1973. It situates the unrest present today in massive HLM in their initial construction during the “Thirty Glorious Years.” I focus largely on HLM in the Ile-de-France metropolitan region because it was the origin of the 2005 riots, but the fact that the unrest ultimately spread to other French suburbs suggests similar stories of social housing. Paris experienced a “typical” urban development in that the architecture of its grands ensembles did not differ significantly from that of others built around the country. On the other hand, Paris experienced a housing crisis more intense than other regions in France because it attracted more immigrants and rural migrants than any other city. The Ile-de-France metropolitan region therefore had to provide significantly more housing; in 1964, for example, 200 grands ensembles in France housed about
2 million people, of which more than half were residents in the Ile-de-France.71 This study of state-sponsored housing in the grands ensembles as they were first built provide a framework through which we can better understand the causes of the 2005 riots.
71 Merlin, New Towns, 142. Quoted from Paul Clerc’s 1967 study of the grands ensembles.
13
Chapter Two: Literature on Social and Suburban Housing in France
The rapid abandonment of massive collective housing begs the answers to several questions: In what ways did the housing projects fail? Was “social crisis” present even before the
2005 riots, and if so, how was it manifested? What are the projects, symbolically abandoned by the state in 1973, like now? The literature addressing these questions comes from such varied academic disciplines as architecture, urban planning, sociology, history, and contemporary journalism. These analyses are overwhelming critical of the grands ensembles: almost all scholars agree that social housing ultimately excluded those who stood to benefit most from it, namely the poorest unskilled laborers and foreign immigrants. Some architects and urban planners approach French social housing from a conceptual standpoint; this literature consists mainly of highly intellectual theories of urban development and architecture. While this approach is valuable for a more abstract understanding of social housing, I prefer the more tangible method of most historians and sociologists whose research relies on statistics provided by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), responses to questionnaires circulated by the researcher, and personal interviews with social housing residents. Where this literature diverges, however, are its conclusions on the nature of social housing’s failure; most scholars condemn either immigrants’ exclusion from French housing or class conflict within the housing projects as the experiment’s principal failure.
Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard’s article L’habitat immigré à Paris aux XIXe et XX siècles: mondes à part? (1998) is a good introduction to immigrants and their residential places in Paris.
She contrasts the experiences of European immigrants with those from North Africa, arguing that
European immigrants were able to integrate easily with French provincials and Parisians,1
1 Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaleard, “L'habitat immigré à Paris aux XIXe et XXe siècles: mondes à part?" Le mouvement social (1998): 31-33.
14
whereas North African immigrants were segregated in residences intended specifically for North
African labor.2 According to Blanc-Chaléard, social housing was offered inadequately to North
African immigrants; although the state attempted to administer housing for them, ultimately the housing that was offered (SONACOTRA foyers and cités de transit) only emphasized their status as temporary (colonized) laborers and further marginalized them from other Parisians and integrated immigrants.3 Although the article provides a substantial history of the immigrant housing experience in Paris, Blanc-Chaléard does not venture beyond the boundaries of the city, omitting the surrounding suburbs that now house a large population of immigrant background.
Although she argues that North African immigrants’ exclusion from HLM projects contributed to their inferior housing conditions in Paris compared to other immigrants, she does not elaborate on that point because HLMs are located outside the city’s periphery. While Blanc-Chaléard’s study is valuable because it puts the suburban housing projects in the context of nearby Paris, it also neglects to elaborate fully on how North African housing experience in Paris was tied to the suburbs and the social housing practices that led to their exclusion there.
In contrast, Les conditions de logement des étrangers en région d’île de France (1979) focuses solely on the immigrant residents of suburban HLM. Jean-Claude Toubon considers the accessibility of suburban housing in the context of existing racism and racial discrimination. He argues that the populations that are actually accepted to HLM and the disparities of housing quality along racial lines reflect the institutional problem of discrimination toward non-European immigrants; in other words, access to HLMs is actually determined by conditions other than income level.4 Therefore, HLM admittance and distribution policies reflect a more general
2 Ibid., 35. 3 Ibid., 44. 4 Jean-Claude Toubon, Les conditions de logement des étrangers en région d'île de France (Paris: INSEE, 1979), 60.
15
societal racism and discrimination of different nationalities.5 Although never discussed explicitly in Toubon’s report, his conclusion uses the actual outcomes of housing practices to comment upon broader societal forces that impact the collective housing experiment and its implementation; in other words, Toubon proposes societal racism as a contributing factor to the patterns of unequal housing distribution that he sees.
Like Toubon, Jean-Paul Flamand addresses the implications of social housing on immigrants in Loger le people (1989). In a general history of the state’s intervention in the housing market, he argues that the French state has historically used social housing to further
Republican and capitalist ambitions; in other words, social housing was a means to instill
Republican values in dissident popular groups in the suburbs6 and to sustain the production of a capitalist working class.7 Flamand thus emphasizes the political motivations behind collective housing policies and at the same time contends that those procedures maintained the social and political marginalization of immigrants8. Like Blanc-Chaléard, Flamand argues that immigrants’ exclusion from HLM and the alternatives that they were offered instead only emphasized their social separateness; that is to say, social housing policy was not actually concerned with the social integration of immigrants into French society.9 Flamand thus suggests that policy decisions were grounded primarily in selfish political motivations because housing was used as a means to secure the suburban electoral base at the expense of others, thereby abandoning the egalitarian ideal behind social housing.
The scholarship mentioned above is only a sample of the literature that addresses the problems and contradictions of foreign immigrants in French social housing. Together, these
5 quoted from JP Butaud in Toubon, Les conditions de logement, 4. 6 Jean-Paul Flamand, Loger le peuple: essai sur l'histoire du logement social en France (Paris: La Découverte, 1989), 12. 7 Ibid., 338. 8 Ibid., 314. 9 Ibid., 313.
16
sources implicate the French state in the low quality of immigrant housing: Blanc-Chaléard contends that North African immigrants were excluded from HLM and were instead offered marginalizing housing options, Toubon argues that HLM acceptance policies incorporated racial discrimination, and Flamand asserts that the state deliberately used social housing to extend
Republican rights to specific individuals and thus ignored unwanted political actors. These writers suggest that HLM are representative of governmental and societal attitudes towards foreign immigrants—exclusion, exploitation, relegation to the worst conditions—which is especially significant in the context of France’s (post)colonial relationship with North Africa and her emigrants to France. HLM, as the product of state intervention, is therefore implicated in state discrimination of immigrants.
The second approach to social housing scholarship is dominated by sociologists who consider the crises that erupted within the projects a consequence of different social and economic classes in close proximity. In Les HLM: structure sociale de la population logée
(1976), Michel Pinçon argues that, far from being an “island of social justice” providing housing to the lowest wage-earners, rent-controlled housing only reproduces inequalities that already exist in the private housing market.10 For example, HLM actually favors poor, skilled workers who can afford to withstand rent increases or cuts in state aid without being completely forced out of HLM apartments.11 Furthermore, rents remain high for the lowest wage-earners, who are then forced to take the cheapest (and lowest quality) housing units, echoing patterns in the private housing market.12 Pinçon continues this focus in the article Habitat et modes de vie: la cohabitation des groups sociaux dans un ensemble HLM (1981). In a case study of a single social housing building that actually contains a heterogeneous mix of social classes, Pinçon
10 Michel Pinçon, et al., Les HLM: structure sociale de la population logée (Paris : CSU, 1976), 349. 11 Ibid., 344. 12 Ibid., 349.
17
questions why social relationships can be exclusionary despite spatial integration.13 His study of the building’s cultural center reveals that the way in which groups engage in group activities naturally appeals to particular social classes and thus creates tension between classes.14 In contrast to scholarship that condemns the lack of social interaction within massive housing complexes, Pinçon argues that the particular manner of social interaction creates inequalities;15 he thus implies that class tension is inevitable in the superficial environment of collective housing. Unlike the studies mentioned above that consider immigration in the context of social housing, Pinçon does not take account of race or ethnic background in his studies. He is interested rather in how class, indicated by formal level of employment or preference for certain cultural activities, reveals inadequacies in the notion of collective housing.
Jean-Claude Chamboredon and Madeleine Lemaire also address class divisions in their article Proximité spatiale et distance sociale: les grands ensembles et leur peuplement (1970).
Chamboredon and Lemaire argue that the failures of social housing are not the result of its physical conditions; rather, social divisions are predetermined by the heterogeneity of the people who live there.16 Much like Pinçon’s article mentioned above, this conclusion assumes social crisis when different classes are put in close contact. Chamboredon and Lemaire assert that social tensions result from the clash between a “petit bourgeois” morality and a “popular class” morality; rather than homogenizing differences, collective housing only draws attention to these cultural dissimilarities.17 However, like Pinçon, Chamboredon and Lemaire do not discuss the impact of racial difference and immigrant residents in their study, a component that surely
13 Michel Pinçon, “Habitat et modes de vie: la cohabitation des groupes sociaux dans un ensemble HLM,” Revue française de sociologie (1981): 524. 14 Ibid., 531. 15 Ibid., 546. 16 Jean-Claude Chamboredon and Madeleine Lemaire, “Proximité spatiale et distance sociale: les grands ensembles et leur peuplement,” Revue française de sociologie (1970): 5. 17 Ibid., 23.
18
influenced social interactions between residents; to ignore the importance of race is to overlook a significant factor in social crisis within the grands ensembles.
Agnes Villechaise examines the same issue in La banlieue sans qualités: absence d’identité collective dans les grands ensembles (1997), in which she argues that the working class no longer identifies as working class; instead, it identifies “upward” with a middle class whose financial status it cannot attain.18 Consequently, the individualist values of this working class as it attempts to move up the social ladder create an “us” versus “them” mentality whereby residents try to protect themselves from the “contamination” of those they consider to be “lower” than themselves.19 Unlike Pinçon and Chamboredon and Lemaire, Villechaise discusses race in the context of these class divisions when she contends that racism arises out of this “us” versus
“them” mentality as an artificial and informal separation.20 It is troubling that Villechaise explains racism in social housing as only a byproduct of class frustration. Indeed, she suggests that racial heterogeneity can make social interaction feel “forced” between people who don’t share a similar culture or history.21 The implications of this argument, beyond racial segregation as a solution to social isolation, suggest that the mixing of social classes will always produce these social crises—much like the implication of the sociological scholarship mentioned above— in the form of racism. In her conclusion, Villechaise argues that social differences only became problematic in the grands ensembles after the 1980s economic recessions effectively barred upward economic mobility;22 until that point, the failures of social housing were ignored by optimistic residents hoping to move into the middle class and move out of the grands ensembles.
In other words, Villechaise contends that suburban social crisis arose solely from the working
18 Agnes Villechaise, “La banlieue sans qualités: absence d’identité collective dans les grands ensembles,” Revue française de sociologie (1997): 352. 19 Ibid., 358-359, 363. 20 Ibid., 359. 21 Ibid., 365. 22 Ibid., 371.
19
class’s inaccessibility to middle-class consumption; tension in the housing projects was the product of frustrated social classes.
The newest approach to social housing scholarship reacts to the 2005 riots initiated in the
Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, examining the relationship between French youth and their space in the suburbs. However, this literature is limited temporally, never venturing further back than the 1980s or 1990s to explain suburban frustration and violence; furthermore, its actors are limited—influenced perhaps by a biased or racist media—to French youth of predominantly
African descent. Sortir des banlieues: pour en finir avec la tyrannie des territoires (2007) by
Sophie Body-Gendrot and Catherine de Wenden, for example, examines remnants of collective housing’s failure in the Parisian suburbs today: weak social mixing (in both housing and schools), inaccessibility to transportation, police brutality, injustice, no confidence in the youth, and the stigma attached to Islam. Similarly, Catherine de Wenden and Zakya Daoud’s collection of short articles in Banlieues…Intégration ou explosion? (1993), despite preceding the 2005 riots, focuses on troubling aspects in the suburbs much like those in Sortir des banlieues, such as youth culture, drug culture, fragmentation of the family, and unemployment. Similarly, Susan
Ossman and Susan Terrio’s The French Riots: Questioning Spaces of Surveillance and
Sovereignty (2006) questions social distinctions within urban spaces in response to the 2005 riots, specifically involving French youth and methods of police surveillance and brutality.
Despite modern scholarship’s attempt to look beyond the 2005 riots that the media has tied inextricably to the suburbs,23 the literature mentioned in the current paragraph ultimately reaffirm that association by discussing almost exclusively the cultural clash between suburban youth of African descent and the French state, the two principle actors in the 2005 riots. For the
23 Sophie Body-Gendrot and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Sortir des banlieues (Paris: Autrement, 2007), 11.
20
purposes of my study, this approach ignores the historical past of the suburbs beyond the movement of foreign immigrants to the suburbs and the youth crisis.
Indeed, despite seemingly different focuses—immigration, class, French youth—in the scholarship on French social housing, the texts presented here effectively examine the same question: how did the social housing experiment fail? Consequently, the literature addresses only the (negative) effects of social housing, for the most part glossing over the specific motivations behind the policies that caused them. Flamand comes closest to the approach I take in this paper when he claims that French social housing policy was driven by a desire to promote the political and social growth of the middle class and its allegiance to the Republic.24 Yet Flamand ultimately fails to connect political motivations, actual policy, and its consequences. Loger le peuple argues that housing policy was motivated by the production of a Republican electorate at the expense of immigrants’ exclusion, but Flamand does not demonstrate concretely how specific policy choices reflected the existing politics. In his discussion of political motivations of housing policy from the 1950s through the 1970s, Flamand neglects to examine the role of political beliefs in the policies themselves and how the results of the social housing experiment were shaped by them.
In order to more fully understand the spatial dimension of the 2005 riots, I look backward to the initial collective housing experiment that was implemented in the 1950s. Although scholarship that focuses on this period generally agrees that the experiment failed, referring to the immigrants and low-wage earners that were excluded from the projects and the social tensions produced within them, it neglects to explain these effects in relationship to the specific built environment as well as the politics that created it. My paper focuses instead on the consequences of state intervention in social housing: what the expectations of the French state
24 Flamand, Loger le peuple, 12.
21
towards public housing policy were in the postwar period, how those goals impacted specific housing practices, and if or how housing policies ultimately institutionalized those state values.
In other words, why did social housing policy assume the form that it did, and how did that ultimately produce the social failures that literature describes?
My understanding of daily life and official procedures in collective housing is shaped by the statistics available through the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies
(INSEE), the French National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), and surveys conducted by several of the sociologists and historians mentioned above. The source by Jean-Claude
Toubon, for example, was published as an official INSEE report on immigrants’ housing; therefore considering the focus of the report, the data Toubon offers deals primarily with the intersection of race, skill level, and housing condition. For example, the results that Toubon finds most significant compare housing conditions for similarly-skilled French citizens versus foreign immigrants. Supplementing Toubon’s report, the INSEE website offers a varied selection of statistics on almost every aspect of French society and housing; these reports provide a better understanding of the French society that produced the social housing experiment. The scholarship of Michel Pinçon also provides informative statistics on social housing demographics, but his findings focus more on residents’ class than their race. Les HLM: structure sociale de la population logée, for example, relies on data that correlates class (defined according to salary and skill level) and housing conditions in order to indicate trends in different classes’ access to housing. Another work by Pinçon, Cohabiter: groups sociaux et modes de vie dans une cité hlm also looks at demographic patterns in social housing; however, in addition to statistics on the racial and class composition of HLM, the surveys address more varied and personal topics: residents’ opinions on construction delays, for example, or why they were
22
initially drawn to living in the HLM. More valuable, still, are the personal accounts and interviews by HLM residents that discuss the realities of daily life in the housing projects; these narratives are significant because they provide a more personal perspective on statistics that do not capture the nuances of real racial and social interactions. Much like this more personal approach, the results of Paul Clerc’s 1967 study—presented in his book Grands ensembles, banlieues nouvelles: enquête démographique et psycho-sociologique and providing the primary source material for Chamboredon and Lemaire’s article—correlate social housing and the quality of life of its residents; the surveys Clerc presents discuss initial impressions of the projects, drawbacks to life in the complexes, etc.
While the primary sources mentioned above provide compelling evidence for the inadequacies and biases that appeared in the grands ensembles, it is also important to examine the role of the government in the creation of these housing deficiencies. The website for the
French National Assembly Archive offers complete transcripts of parliamentary sessions and debates beginning in 1958; as my project deals with the rise and fall of the grands ensembles during the “Thirty Glorious Years,” I am concerned with the political atmosphere of that postwar period. I therefore rely on the political debates of the first through the fifth legislatures that span the years of 1958 to 1973. The discussions and debates of those making housing policy decisions reveal the political motivations and considerations for, and against, public housing at the time.
These political debates also put the housing crisis into a broader context of immigration, postwar politics, and the national economy.
23
Much like W. Brian Newsome’s recent literature on the grands ensembles,25 my paper explores a French urban phenomenon that has not received adequate attention in English. My approach combines the two primary approaches of the scholarship outlined above by putting sociological statistics into a more complete historical context. It differs from a sociological study because my project is not limited to forms of social crisis that emerged in collective housing; rather, I plan to relate the experiment’s failure to the administrative factors that created it.
Similarly, I do not discuss the architectural aspect of the grands ensembles except briefly; enough attention has already been given to the architectural impact of the projects. This study departs from existing literature by examining the HLM social housing program instead on a political level. I ask: what role did the French government play in the failure of the collective housing experiment? To what extent was the failure of the grands ensembles, both during the
“Thirty Glorious Years” and even today, the doing of the French state?
25 See, for example, French Urban Planning, 1940-1968: The Construction and Deconstruction of an Authoritarian System (New York: Peter Lang, 2009) and “The Rise of the Grands Ensembles: Government, Business, and Housing in Postwar France,” Historian (2004).
24
Chapter Three: Residents of the grands ensembles and HLM Social Housing
At the time of their construction, the grands ensembles were considered the quantitative and qualitative answer to France’s housing problems. The suburban housing projects created hundreds of thousands of “modern” apartments for those seeking housing or better living conditions. In a survey of 100 households who moved to grands ensembles, 44 said they did so in order to “improve their housing,” either because their previous housing was too expensive, too small or too uncomfortable; a further 21 households cited “precarious” former living conditions, such as unsanitary slums.1 Housing demand endured well into the 1970s, as 400,000 people in the extended Parisian region alone still lived in unsanitary living conditions in 1973.2 However, the French government’s effort during the two previous decades to increase the number of sanitary homes was largely successful in reducing the severity of the postwar housing crisis. In
1954, for example, 73% of French housing did not have an interior bathroom; by 1962, that number had dropped to only 39%.3 In a report produced by the French National Institute of
Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) in 1979, Jean-Claude Toubon wrote that “conditions of overcrowding had improved since 1968. The large increase in families established in suburban
HLM projects has produced a large decrease in the number of households living in overcrowded conditions.”4 Furthermore, residents of the new housing projects recognized that the grands ensembles did provide improved physical housing conditions; of 100 polled households, 82 believed that they were better housed in the grands ensembles than they had been previously.5
1 Paul Clerc, Grands ensembles, banlieues nouvelles: enquête démographique et psycho-sociologique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1967), 232. 2 Jean-Claude Toubon, Les conditions de logement des étrangers en région d'île de France (Paris: INSEE, 1979), 10. 3 Catherine Mengin, “La solution des grands ensembles,” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire (1999), 108. 4 Toubon, Les conditions de logement, 22. 5 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 236.
25
Who were the residents of the Parisian grands ensembles? What did residents think about their surroundings? How did daily life in collective housing projects differ from that in a city?
This chapter attempts to answer these questions by providing a sketch of the population that lived in the complexes, the housing conditions themselves, and residents’ reactions to the architectural and social experiment.
I. Residents of the grands ensembles and HLM
The selective application process for HLM apartments produced a distinctive type of household that was allotted housing in the complexes. Married couples and French families dominated the new housing built during this time, despite their part in the overall French population. Of all French housing built after 1948, for example, 83.7% was occupied by a family as opposed to a single person.6 This trend extended to the grands ensembles: in 1962, a married man constituted the head of 68% of French households while in the grands ensembles, 89% of households were led by a married man. Only 2% of grands ensembles households were led by unmarried men, compared to 9% in France; 9% were led by women, compared to 22% in France.
Clerc uses this statistic to argue that “households in the grands ensembles were more often made up of couples than all of French households.”7
Families that moved to suburban grands ensembles had very distinctive characteristics.
Most of the households living in the grands ensembles were families consisting of married parents and one or more children. In a survey of 100 households, 88 were married couples, 77 of which (88%) had children; households made up of only married couples and children represented
6 Toubon, Les conditions de logement, 19. 7 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 134. He also argues that female-led households in France were usually older widows who had lost their husbands to old age or to World War I. Because the population of the grands ensembles was younger than the general French population, Clerc argues that there were fewer widows in the housing projects, therefore increasing the percentage of male-led households.
26
71% of the surveyed households.8 Yet these nuclear families were also quite small. Michel
Pinçon demonstrates that smaller families consisting of two to four members were more likely to live in HLM compared to larger families. For example, 45.9% of surveyed H.L.M. households were composed of three to four members, whereas that percentage dropped to 25.2% for families of five or more.9 The design of HLM apartments reinforced this pattern: 75% of HLM were 3- or
4-bedroom apartments, while studios and larger apartments were found less and less frequently in grands ensembles.10
The largest families (six people or more) were even less common in HLM apartments. Of those households, the proportion led by immigrants was significantly higher; in other words, the proportion of families led by immigrants increased as size increased. For example, of families with six members of more living in HLM, 9.2% of those families were led by an immigrant; in contrast, only 3% of two-member families had an immigrant as its head of the household.11
Although this statistic does not necessarily imply that allotment policies were explicitly racist, similar figures reveal that general housing conditions differed significantly between immigrants and those of French nationality. Indeed, French Europeans were consistently housed better than immigrants. For example, immigrants were almost three times more likely to live in very
“uncomfortable” housing conditions (without interior W.C.) compared to French Europeans.12
Similarly, immigrants made up 35.3% of all overcrowded housing in Paris, despite the fact that they made up only 11.9% of the total population in that region.13
8 Ibid., 122. 9 Michel Pinçon, et al., Les HLM: structure sociale de la population logée (Paris : CSU, 1976) Vol. II, 270. 10 Bruno Vayssière, Reconstruction, Déconstruction: le hard French, ou l’architecture française des trente glorieuses (Paris: Picard, 1988), 56. 11 Ibid., 270. 12 Jean-Claude Toubon, Les conditions de logement, 10. 13 Ibid., 21.
27
Immigrant families were by no means denied access to HLM; in 1974, for example, they received 11.8% of all social housing offered in the Parisian region that year.14 However, the immigrant households who ultimately lived in HLM apartments were unlike their fellow French
European residents. For example, immigrant households tended to be of a higher class than other
French European occupants, suggesting that immigrant applicants were held to a higher standard than other candidates. Jean-Claude Toubon notes, for example, that “while among French workers, it is unskilled laborers that are most likely to be housed in HLM, among immigrant workers it is semi-skilled laborers and more likely skilled than unskilled.”15 Toubon’s finding is confirmed by a study by Michel Pinçon that shows that 5.7% of unskilled immigrant laborers in the Parisian region live in HLM, and that this value jumps to 14.8% among semi-skilled labor.
The percentage of French unskilled laborers, however, fell from 20.0% to 18.2% of semi-skilled laborers in the same region.16 Pinçon’s evidence demonstrates that higher earning immigrant workers are more likely to be housed in HLM apartments. In a case study of a different HLM complex, Pinçon suggests that the immigrant communities that are closest culturally to French households are also those that have the highest level of working qualifications.17
Indeed, the HLM projects attracted residents far above the most disadvantaged of the population, immigrant or not. The economic status of those in HLM apartments created a bell curve of the overall working French population. The studies of both Paul Clerc and Michel
Pinçon confirm that HLM had significantly more skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled residents, excluding the highest paid and the lowest on both sides of that spectrum. In Pinçon’s sample of
14 Ibid., 15. 15 Ibid., 31. 16 Pinçon, Les HLM Vol. II, 267. 17 Pinçon, Cohabiter: groupes sociaux et modes de vie dans une cité HLM (Paris: Ministère de l'urbanisme et du logement, 1982), 77. Pinçon is referring to the Sillon de Bretagne in Nantes, where 79% of Portuguese residents are skilled laborers. “[The level of working qualification] has a decisive importance in the lives of immigrant communities and their integration into the Sillon de Bretagne…”
28
HLM residents, unskilled workers represented 40.8% of the total, followed by semi-skilled labor at 28.7%. In contrast, the highest earners totaled 5.5%, and the lowest earners comprised 5.3%.18
In other words, HLM projects attracted a solid middle and working class population while excluding the highest-paid and most disadvantaged workers. This trend was debated by French politicians in the National Assembly; the disagreement over who was to benefit from social housing suggests that, at this time, the French state was grappling with its role as a “social state.”
In addition, the residents of the grands ensembles, HLM in particular, were significantly younger than the rest of French population, due both to relative age and the high number of families with children living there. In a case study of a HLM housing complex in Nantes, Michel
Pinçon noted that only 1.9% of the population housed there was over the age of 65, even though that age group made up over ten percent of the total population in Nantes. Furthermore, the average age in that housing complex was little over 20 years old.19 Similarly, 77% of heads of household were less than 45 years old in grands ensembles, compared to only 37% of all French households.20 It is clear that the new constructions attracted a significantly younger, working and middle-class population of comfortable means.
II. Comfort and quality of grands ensembles housing
How did the actual built environment of the grands ensembles affect the quality of life of its residents? During this time, housing development for the Parisian workforce was focused towards the immediate periphery of the city because there was simply no more space in the city proper. In 1975, “80-90% of new housing built since 1949 has been oriented towards the
18 Pinçon, Les HLM Vol. II, 174. 19 Pinçon, Cohabiter, 78. 20 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 134.
29
periphery of cities.”21 However, development did not extend much farther due to increased transportation time to work as well as increased distance from common facilities.22 For example, in 1967 there were 56 housing complexes of 1500 or more units in the immediate and extended periphery of Paris. Of those, 33 were found in the immediate periphery, or “little crown”, of the capital.23 The residential construction of the “Thirty Glorious Years” was characterized by decentralization away from the city center: between 1954 and 1962, the population of the “little crown” increased by 18% while that of the city of Paris decreased by 7%. The population of the extended periphery increased by 44%, a value that does not necessary disprove that construction was concentrated in the “little crown,” but rather emphasizes the rapid growth of previously unpopulated suburbs.24 However, residents of the grands ensembles disliked their location on the urban outskirts. The inconvenience listed most often by residents (22% in one study) was “the distance from the center.”25 Some residents felt socially isolated in the suburbs: one noted that he
“is far from everything, isolated; no human contact, it’s very sad. For me, it’s complete exile.”26
This feeling of separation was perhaps worsened by insufficient modes of public transportation: in 1967, 57% of surveyed residents took solitary modes of transportation—bicycle, motorcycle, or car—to work, and only 28% took public transportation.27 Two years later, construction of the
Réseau Express Régional (RER) began in order to provide commuter trains and facilitate transportation into Paris.28
21 Simon Nora and Bertrand Eveno, Rapport sur l’amélioration de l’habitat ancien (Paris : Documentation française, 1975), 18. 22 Michel Pinçon, et al., Les HLM: structure sociale de la population logée (Paris : CSU, 1976) Vol. I, 24. 23 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 28. There were no housing complexes larger than 1000 units within the city of Paris. 24 Ibid., 139. 25 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 205. 26 Ibid., 206. 27 Ibid., 306. 28 Robert Gildea, France Since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 96.
30
The construction of new housing during this period offered the opportunity to build
“sanitary” and comfortable living conditions. Consequently, housing built further from the “old” city of Paris included more modern amenities and raised the living standards of those who moved to the suburbs. For example, newer housing units were more likely to have central heating: whereas 46.3% of Parisian housing lacked central heating, only 37% of housing in the
“little crown” had the same deficiency. That percentage fell further to 28.7% in the extended periphery.29 This pattern existed throughout the country. By 1965, 99% of apartments in grands ensembles had bath or shower installed, compared to 29% of total housing in France.30 Similarly,
82% of all grands ensembles had central heating, compared to only 16% of all French residences.31
The new grands ensembles constructions consequently became a symbol of modern living on several different levels. Those who moved to the complexes were “modern” individuals who demanded a higher standard of living. For example, 70% of households in the grands ensembles had a television, compared to only 46% of all French households.32 Apartments in the grands ensembles were intended for the new needs of the “modern individual” and therefore included central heating, an interior bathroom, and running water. Short television programs promoting the HLM projects brought attention to the high-tech appliances of the new homes: tours of the new constructions frequently focused on the hot-water heater, shower, and stove that equipped many of the units.33 Other programs proudly showcased the modern construction methods being used: in a televised interview with Pierre Sudreau, the minister of construction
29 Pinçon, Les HLM Vol. I, 99. 30 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 102. 31 Ibid., 103. 32 Ibid., 316. 33 Claude Joubert, Inauguration d’HLM à Ivry, (Office national de radiodiffusion télévision française, 1955), from ina.fr, 1:55, http://www.ina.fr/economie-et-societe/environnement-et-urbanisme/video/CAF97065339/inauguration- d-hlm-a-ivry.fr.html.
31
during de Gaulle’s presidency, emphasis was placed on the use of cranes, electric tools, and prefabricated parts during the construction of the grands ensembles.34
The grands ensembles as a housing solution, however, lacked aesthetic quality. A Mr.
Bernasconi expressed concern to the French National Assembly about the architectural impact of the housing projects, saying that “they are generally distinguished by a lack of aesthetic and harmony seemingly independent of financial reasons.” Indeed, he went even further to declare that the new buildings are a “true chaos that strikes the eye as one leaves Paris.”35 The minister of construction responded to Mr. Bernasconi’s complaint asserting that architectural decisions would be made by several architect consultants; furthermore, the new architecture of the grands ensembles represented the opportunity to define the epoch.36 Earlier that year Pierre Sudreau had also claimed that “urban renovation is not only intended to rehouse families wasting away physically and morally in slums, but also to give city centers a structure and architecture worthy of our time.”37 The political function of collective housing is discussed further in the next chapter, but it is important to note here that Sudreau’s defense of the housing projects is associated with morality, while other politicians supported collective housing for different reasons: the socialist Jean Minjoz commented that the grands ensembles allowed all residents “to profit from large, green spaces and direct views that challenge, in general, an excessive individualism…”38 This statement suggests that the architecture of the grands ensembles was not
34 Pierre Sabbagh, La construction: entretien avec Pierre Sudreau, ministre de la construction, (Office national de radiodiffusion télévision française, 1958), from ina.fr, 47:51, http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF86635167/la-construction- entretien-avec-pierre-sudreau-minsistre-de-la-construction.fr.html. 35 Mr. Bernasconi, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (18 November 1960): 3949. 36 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (18 November 1960): 3949. 37 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (7 June 1960): 1188. 38 Jean Minjoz, socialist representative from Doubs. Quoted in: Sabine Effosse, “L’enjeu économique de l’habitat collectif en France au temps des Trente Glorieuses,” Revue du Nord (2009): 558.
32
only an efficient method to provide housing, but it also symbolized an alternative to existing ideas of individualism.
III. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction of residents
In 1973, the French government declared the failure of collective housing due to “popular dissatisfaction.” What did residents think of collective housing when it was built during the
1950s and 1960s? What aspects of collective housing created “popular dissatisfaction?”
In 1967, the majority of grand ensemble residents (52%) believed that new housing in the form of collective housing units was “a good thing.”39 Yet 82% of residents said that they would prefer to live in an individual house if housing expenses remained the same.40 In other words, although most residents acknowledged the necessity of collective housing to address the current housing crisis, the detached home remained the ideal. When asked about the primary reason for residence in a social housing complex, 34% of surveyed households in the Sillon de Bretagne said that “they had had no choice” or that they “had been forced out” of their previous housing;
14% cited “economic reasons.”41 Although the new residential units provided comfortable living conditions, their fundamental flaw was that living in the grands ensembles was never desirable.
Most residents acknowledged both positive and negative aspects of life in the grands ensembles. While some residents disliked suburban living, 23% of surveyed residents cited “the location, the landscape, and the fresh air” as the first advantage of living in the grands ensembles, the same percentage as those who cited “the housing.”42 In the Sillon de Bretagne,
“the marketplace” and “the stores” were the benefits most often acknowledged about the
39 31%, however, believed that it was “a bad thing.” 40 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 189. 41 Pinçon, Cohabiter, 70. 42 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 196.
33
complex,43 followed by “the view” and the greenery.44 The necessity of public amenities such as
“the marketplace” and “the stores” was unfortunately underestimated by both architects and politicians involved in the construction process. Politicians who recognized their importance argued that the largest failure of HLM was the deficiency of public facilities in the complexes.
Communist deputy Robert Ballanger, for example, accused Pierre Sudreau of “refusing to understand that, at the same time that housing construction continues, it is essential to give the communes the means to realize the corresponding collective facilities.”45 The facilities demanded, however, were severely constricted by HLM budgets. One mayor rejected a permit to construct 3,000 new housing units because the budget would not be able to withstand the extra costs of corresponding facilities.46 In this way, the construction of the grands ensembles challenged existing notions of suitable living conditions, and public amenities were gradually recognized as crucial to massive residential construction. In 1962, a professor/Health Inspector argued that “the needs of collective living demand space, free or green, special event halls, public monuments, hospitals…their absence or their distance is the cause of segregation, alienation, or individual or collective discontent.”47
In addition, there were many inconveniences to life in the social housing projects, some of which were associated with the actual built environment. For example, the actual layout of the apartments was determined by function, distinguishing the layout of the grands ensembles from traditional apartments. Consequently, because the bedroom was used during more hours of the
43 This is revealing about the importance of public facilities in the housing projects. Unfortunately, many complexes did not have adequate facilities; only 1% of residents in French grands ensembles cited “various facilities” as the primary advantage to living in the projects. This significant flaw was discussed by deputies in the National Assembly. Source: Clerc, Grands ensembles, 196. 44 Pinçon, Cohabiter, 85. 45 Robert Ballanger, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (4 December 1959): 3194. 46 Georges Coudray, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (15 May 1959): 1959. 47 R. Hazemann, “Les Habitations – Santé – Famille,” Echanges (1962): 16.
34
day (8-12 hours), it deserved more surface area than the dining room (only used for 2 to 3 hours); the dining area was thus incorporated into the living room, and the kitchen also became smaller.48 Yet this new layout was problematic: the psycho-sociologist René Kaës observed that
“often the residents do not know how to or cannot adjust their lifestyle according to the architects’ plans, either because the residents’ upbringing is still unsophisticated or because the architects were not trained appropriately to respond to the needs of modern life.”49 The physical architecture of the complexes was problematic for residents in other ways. In the Sillon de
Bretagne, for example, 22% of surveyed residents were bothered by “the dirtiness and lack of hygiene”; a further 16.6% cited “an aspect of the building and its malfunctioning, neighbors, the lack of intimacy.”50
However, many problems in the same complex were also associated with the other residents. For example, Pinçon reports that 10.8% of those surveyed were bothered by “the dirtiness, ill-will, and dishonesty of the people” and that this quality was often associated with the presence of immigrants. Indeed, 12.3% of residents in the same complex were also cited “the immigrants” as a disadvantage.51 Pinçon’s case study of the HLM complex in Nantes is particularly revealing of racism between French Europeans and immigrants. More than 40% of residents in that complex perceived (incorrectly) that there were “more immigrants than French”;
Pinçon notes that this sentiment “concerns all social categories, even if it is the most modest categories that have a tendency to produce the strongest overestimation.”52 He also argues that
“there is a strong correlation between this overestimation and the intent of households to move out. It is the households that intend to leave the Sillon as soon as possible that often overestimate
48 René Kaës, Vivre dans les grands ensembles (Paris: Les Editions Ouvriers, 1963), 34. 49 Ibid., 34. 50 Pinçon, Cohabiter, 84. 51 Ibid., 84. 52 Ibid., 82.
35
the proportion of immigrants…”53 The particular lifestyle that the grands ensembles offered therefore did not appeal to everyone. Those who disliked the diversity of the projects’ residents were more likely to leave, foreshadowing the emergence of a more homogenous, racially and economically, population in the housing projects.
The “typical” recipient of social housing was therefore a small, middle or working-class
French European family. Singles, immigrants, and the most extreme social classes were less commonly found in the projects. In other words, social housing in the grands ensembles was allocated to a very distinct type of Frenchperson. Was this consistent with the goals of a “social state”? Who was supposed to benefit from public housing?
53 Ibid., 82. 73.3% of households who intended to move out of the Sillon de Bretagne and into an individual house overestimated the presence of immigrants.
36
Chapter Four: Gaullist Politics and HLM
In 1959, National Assembly deputy Henri Meck of the Mouvement Républicain
Populaire (MRP)1 declared that construction and the housing crisis had remained the “number one social question” in French politics for more than a decade.2 By that time, housing was considered one of three human “primary needs,” the other two being food and clothing.3
Consequently, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, French politicians considered the housing crisis at the forefront of state concerns. During this time, these political leaders discussed and debated housing laws, practices, and attempted to resolve their constituents’ complaints. Indeed, the improvement of housing conditions was both crucial and urgent because the crisis posed a threat to public safety: in 1959, Gaullist representative Marcelle Devaud claimed that, unless Algerian immigrants to the Métropole were given adequate housing, those individuals would otherwise be confined to “ghettos—places of unrest extremely dangerous for social peace.”4 For Devaud, inadequate housing would have troubling consequences for the public order, an observation that foreshadows the riots that erupted almost 50 years later and were fuelled by frustration in suburban ghettos.
Beyond the individual’s need for housing, it also affected the country as a whole: Pierre
Courant5 claimed that, if ignored or improperly addressed, urban planning would be “a trouble
1 Members of the MRP, Christian Democrats, aligned with de Gaulle in 1958 but turned against him in 1962. Source: Philip Williams and Martin Harrison, Politics and Society in de Gaulle’s Republic (London: Longman, 1971), 108-109. 2 Henri Meck, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (28 October 1959): 2013. 3 Guy Jarrosson, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (15 January 1959): 32. 4 Marcelle Devaud, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (9 June 1959): 316. 5 Pierre Courant, a républicain indépendant, served as Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism in 1953; the “Courant Plan” of that year projected the construction of 240,000 housing units each year. Source: Danièle Voldman, La reconstruction des villes françaises de 1940 à 1954: histoire d’une politique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), 233.
37
weighing heavily on the entire destiny of the country.”6 Indeed, it was crucial to the continuity of
French society: one Socialist delegate declared that “there is no social future in this country if we cannot assure the happiness of our citizens by good housing.”7 Furthermore, as an individual’s primary need, housing was tied inextricably to the happiness and health of the French population.
Communist deputy Maurice Niles warned of the housing crisis’s “severe repercussions on the physical health and morale of French families.”8 Housing was associated with the very health of
France and her citizens, and the necessity of addressing the crisis was acknowledged across party lines.
The administration of state-sponsored grands ensembles was inextricably tied to French politics during the “Thirty Glorious Years.” Only twelve years after it was established, by 1958 the Fourth Republic of France was struggling. In May of that year, a coup d’état led by French military leaders in Algiers rebelled against what they considered an incompetent leadership and political system. On June 1, the current President René Coty asked national hero Charles de
Gaulle to assume the presidency. De Gaulle’s return was conditional upon a new constitution, and on September 28 the French people were asked to approve the formation of the Fifth
Republic of France.
Many believed that the effectiveness of the previous Republic had been hindered by strong parliamentary politics; this “anti-parliamentarism” encouraged French voters to reject the
“representative tradition” of the Fourth Republic.9 Consequently, the majority of French voters—
6 Pierre Courant, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (23 November 1959): 2831. 7 Albert Denvers, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (23 November 1959): 2834. 8 Maurice Niles, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (7 July 1960): 1708. 9 Nicholas Wahl, The Fifth Republic: France’s New Political System (New York: Random House, 1959), 29.
38
82% said “yes”10—to adopt a new constitution that concentrated political power in the executive.
The abolition of the Fourth Republic by the 1958 referendum revealed the frustration of a people
“still reacting against a system in which such a political life overshadowed effective government often to the point of negation”11; by voting “yes,” the French people rejected the traditional roles of the administration. The changes were most obvious in the new functions of the legislative and executive powers: de Gaulle’s constitution created a more powerful executive and took legislative power away from the National Assembly.12 In other words, “it was to put an end to parliamentary omnipotence.”13 De Gaulle and his Prime Minister, Michel Debré, essentially directed the new Fifth Republic.
A new Gaullist Right emerged during this period of postwar prosperity and nationalism, and the Left, which had previously enjoyed political success due to their role in the French
Resistance, lost support as de Gaulle appealed to its working-class supporters.14 In 1958, the
Union pour la Nouvelle République (UNR) was formed as an “anti-party” around de Gaulle that
“sought to rally the French behind the head of state in a ‘Gaullist movement’ that was a union and not a party.”15 The UNR was an unusual political group because it “was not organized around a political tradition or ideology for the purpose of winning power; the aim was rather to be the army of those who had formed up around de Gaulle, and as such to enable him to win public approval not for a doctrine, but for a concept of how public power should be organized.”16
The UNR enjoyed the political support of almost all political parties, except the Left.
10 “La Cinquième République à 50 Ans,” Assemblée Nationale, 11 February 2011
39
The Left, in contrast, struggled to maintain its membership against de Gaulle’s widespread popularity. In the November 1958 legislative elections, for example, the Communist
Party lost 30% of its voters.17 During its peak immediately following the war and benefiting from the Communists’ role in the French Resistance, the French Communist Party held 183 seats
(about 29%) in the National Assembly in 1946; following the legislative elections in November
1958, it held a mere 10 seats (almost 2%).18 “The primary cause of this huge defeat in November
1958 is clearly the fact that for the average Communist voter…de Gaulle’s prestige and the promise he represented of a break with the men and policies of the Fourth Republic proved to be more influential than the party’s propaganda.”19
The victory of de Gaulle and his new constitution in 1958 indicated a very real change in
French politics and administration. Consequently, the discourse of the executive branch and the
UNR in the National Assembly emphasized a rupture between past and contemporary efforts to resolve the housing crisis. At the beginning of the Fifth Republic, the Gaullist government established the specific form that government intervention was to take related to housing. Soon after the legislative elections in November, Louis Terrenoire (UNR) claimed that the new,
“energetic and courageous minister” would help the country move past “past errors.”20 Pierre
Sudreau, the Minister of Construction from 1958 to 1962, claimed in 1959 that the current generation now had to collectively address the consequences of “an absurd politic” that had for many years caused the deterioration of property holdings.21 He was perhaps referring to rent- freezing legislation of the interwar period that prevented profit in building and therefore
17 Wahl, Fifth Republic, 59. 18 Williams and Harrison, Politics and Society, 131. 19 Wahl, Fifth Republic, 60. 20 Louis Terrenoire, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (9 December 1958): 37. 21 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (19 June 1959): 944.
40
discouraged investment. Prime Minister Debré argued in 1961 that for more than 50 years, and especially since the end of World War II, an urban strategy had been needed to avoid the growth of “ugly, miserable, and wild suburbs” around the capital of France that had now become the shame of all associated with the matter. Yet “for the past 15 years, the necessities of reconstruction, constraints, and priorities of public finances did not favor a serious attempt to correct what had been done, or rather what had not been done, during the past two generations.”22 Gaullist politicians therefore promoted the current government’s approach by emphasizing that the Third Republic’s rent-control policies had contributed to present-day housing problems, and by criticizing the Fourth Republic’s inability to address the matter sufficiently during reconstruction.
Consequently, the Gaullist government was compelled to tackle the present crisis, especially considering its social importance and fears of brewing unrest. In the same statement condemning inadequate planning in the past, Prime Minister Debré outlined the present government’s intent to reform urban strategy. He argued that “we have no justification if we don’t make an effort [to redress the urban crisis facing the extended Parisian area].”23 Debré therefore intended to expand the State’s involvement in housing. Only a week after assuming office in January 1959, he promised that “the Government intends to increase the rate of construction,” that “the Governments intends to improve the quality of construction,” and that
“the Government…will emphasize urbanism and urban development” throughout all of France.
In other words, the construction of grands ensembles would address housing needs throughout the country. He also argued that “the crisis is too grave for public powers to close themselves off
22 Michel Debré, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (22 June 1961): 1227. 23 Ibid., 1227.
41
in systematic solutions…”24 The same day, a Mr. Bosson reminded the National Assembly that the goals of the government should correspond to the concerns of its citizens. For Mr. Bosson, the primary concern was housing, “both in quantity and in quality.”25 Similarly, deputy Georges
Coudray (MRP) argued in 1960 that housing construction figured among the highest of the government’s social obligations. Coudray believed that the French state was immediately accountable for housing reform. As more and more young people demanded housing in the early
1960s, Coudray warned his fellow representatives that “it would be very serious if the budget [of
1961] did not reflect a willingness to pursue a politic of housing construction.”26 Coudray’s statement suggests that, in addition to a concern for primary human needs, state involvement in housing construction was also motivated by the demands of political constituents.
Members of the French Communist Party (PCF), in particular, emphasized the responsibility of the government to support social programs like housing construction. Maurice
Niles, a Communist representative, declared in 1960 that “the state should take complete responsibility for the construction of popular housing, and dedicate the necessary financial means and use the most modern techniques for it.”27 Communists like Niles were particularly concerned that the particular approach of the Gaullist government was an ineffective method to end the housing crisis. Niles distrusted the interest of private companies subsidized by the state; he argued that the government had to make a choice, either to “give absolute priority to social construction, or [to] allocate a significant amount of aide, loans, and special advantages to real
24 Michel Debré, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (15 January 1959): 30. 25 M. Bosson, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (15 January 1959): 44. 26 Georges Coudray, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 July 1960): 1708. 27 Maurice Niles, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 July 1960): 1707.
42
estate companies who make scandalous profits.”28 By 1963, René Kaës had already written that
“it seems that, in fact, the state favors organizations building expensive housing at the expense of social construction.”29 According to Waldeck Rochet (PCF), the involvement of private companies was problematic because “many of the housing units built by private companies imposed rents that were inaccessible to workers of modest means.” Rochet claimed that this was
“bad politics” because it disregarded the very social aspect of the housing problem.30 For
Communists, social housing was housing for those most in need, not housing intended for a consumer-driven working and middle class.
While most politicians seemed to agree on a commitment to housing reform, the crisis itself was not so easily resolved. The government struggled with almost all stages of the construction process: increasing need for housing, the budget and financial support of construction projects, the system of unit allotment, and the actual quality of life within the complexes. In addition to “past errors” during the Third and Fourth Republics, Gaullists were well aware of more immediate causes of the housing crisis. According to the Minister of
Construction, the present generation had to, “in the area of housing, face the needs created by an expanding youth, and an increasing life expectancy.”31 Earlier that year, the prime minister had also acknowledged the displacement of populations whose movement out of the provinces caused increasing pressure to accommodate them in the cities.32 Need for housing assistance was reaching gigantic proportions; within a decade, the number of French receiving housing benefits
28 Ibid., 1707. 29 Kaës, Vivre, 49. 30 Waldeck Rochet, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (25 October 1960): 2786. The residents of HLM were neither the highest nor the lowest wage earners. 31 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 June 1959): 792. 32 Michel Debré, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (15 January): 30.
43
had increased from 29,425 in 1950 to 407,302 in 1959.33 Yet construction could not keep up with this rising need. Maurice Niles (PCF) criticized the progress of the government by pointing out that in Paris, although 105,435 candidates requested HLM in 1960, only 2,032 units were available. Furthermore, he reported that at an HLM conference that same year, a modest estimate revealed that 400,000 housing units had to be constructed in France each year, of which 150,000 had to be HLM, while another estimate predicted a need for 450,000 total units34. By demonstrating the insufficiency of current housing efforts, Niles challenged the politics of the dominant Gaullist executive.
The constitution of 1958 gave more power to the executive branch of government by limiting the legislative power of the National Assembly as well as its power over financial matters. The National Assembly was no longer involved in major budgetary decisions: in particular, “[d]eputies were no longer allowed to introduce measures…increasing public expenditure.” This gave the government almost exclusive budgetary power because the legislation it proposed would pass unless it was defeated by an absolute majority in the National
Assembly.35 Politicians concerned with housing needs therefore criticized what they considered an insufficient budget made by the Gaullist government. They argued that there was simply not enough money delegated to housing construction during this time; Niles noted in 1960 that “the housing problem is, before all else, a problem of funding and methods of financing.”36 Sabine
Effosse succinctly outlines the problem when she writes that “[collective housing] was the result of strong economic constraints: the absolute necessity to reduce the cost of housing and increase
33 Robert Ballanger, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (21 January 1959): 364. 34 Maurice Niles, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 July 1960): 1707. 35 Berstein, Republic of de Gaulle, 10. See also: Wahl, Fifth Republic, 40. 36 Maurice Niles, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 July 1960): 1708.
44
households’ credit, in order to guarantee a high level of construction while limiting public spending.”37 Parliamentary debates were often dominated by politicians critiquing what appeared to be a decreasing budget allocated to HLM construction. By 1959, for example, a Mr. Bilieux pointed out that “funds allocated during that year would only permit the construction of 210,000 to 230,000 HLM units, less than the three previous years.”38 Similarly, Communist Jean Lolive pointed out two years later that the state had built 10,000 fewer HLM units in 1961than in
1960.39 René Kaës indicated that housing construction decreased consistently during the first years of the Fifth Republic. In 1959, just over 320,000 housing units were finished; in 1960, just over 316,000 units were finished; by 1962, that number had fallen to just under 307,000 units.40
The budget did not correspond to the state’s supposed commitment to housing construction.
The Gaullist government defended itself against these criticisms. In 1959, the Minister of
Construction argued that the price of construction had not risen as much as in previous years—1-
2% as opposed to 12-15%—which meant that fewer funds were actually needed.41 The same year, Sudreau explained further that although “since 1955, the price of construction has not stopped increasing wildly…the index of construction has remained the same during the first three trimesters of 1959.” In fact, although the index of construction remained steady during
1959, the actual price of construction decreased by 6 to 7%.42 In other words, because the cost of construction remained largely the same during 1959, fewer funds were needed to construct the
37 Sabine Effosse, “L’enjeu économique de l’habitat collectif en France au temps des Trente Glorieuses,” Revue du Nord (2009): 562. 38 Mr. Bilieux, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (24 June 1959): 1038. 39 Jean Lolive, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (24 November 1960): 4030. 40 Kaës, Vivre, 62. 41 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (3 July 1959): 1300. 42 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (20 November 1959): 2681.
45
same number of housing units. By 1960, however, opposing political parties reported that although the cost of construction had resumed increasing, funds allocated to HLM construction were decreasing. Maurice Niles (PCF), for example, noted in 1960 that only 223 billion francs had been given to HLM construction, opposed to 230 billion in 1959. According to Niles, these funds were “notoriously insufficient, especially if one took into account the rise in price of construction”; furthermore, it was clear that the “funds allocated to HLM construction were not in relation to need.” 43 To anti-Gaullist parliamentary representatives, it appeared that the budget made exclusively by the government overlooked national housing needs.
Although those in charge of the budget had believed that increasing construction costs would hinder construction, in reality the resulting price freezes of 1959 deterred building progress. That year, a Mr. Weber pointed out that “due to the freeze on HLM construction prices,
HLM societies were having difficulties finishing their plans” and urged the state to reconsider its designated limits.44 Yet the government was reluctant to change the price ceilings, arguing that
“it is possible to achieve operations of excellent quality while respecting the price ceilings instituted in March 1958.”45 Much like the rent-freezes of the interwar period, regulation efforts appeared to be more harmful than helpful. Although the state imposed price ceilings on construction in order to make building less expensive, ultimately this only slowed construction.
Financial considerations perhaps constituted the greatest adversary to construction; in 1959,
Georges Coudray argued that “the budget doesn’t respond anymore to housing politics
43 Maurice Niles, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 July 1960): 1707. 44 Mr. Weber, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (13 October 1959): 1752. 45 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (13 October 1959): 1752.
46
appropriate for the needs of this country.” He succinctly noted that “the only brake to expansion…is the insufficiency of financial means.”46
In the postwar race to build large quantities of housing quickly, many worried that quality would suffer as a consequence. Many politicians demanded that new housing had to be of a quality appropriate for the modern individual. In 1959, Prime Minister Debré claimed that “the
[housing] problem is not solved by bad or insufficient construction. It is not enough to build, one needs to build properly and comfortably, according to political and social views corresponding to the highest conception of the individual life.”47 But high construction quotas amid rising construction costs and frozen allotments forced HLM organizations to cut corners, a consequence that did not go unnoticed by either HLM residents or their representatives. Deputy
Roger Devémy, for example, argued in 1959 that “higher costs of construction and weak price ceilings had degraded the habitable conditions of familial housing.” According to Devémy, statistics for completed projects were deceiving; despite an increase in finished housing units since 1956—236,000 finished in 1956; 271,000 in 1957; 290,000 in 1958—the relative size of each unit had decreased from 87 square meters in 1951 to 68 square meters in 1957.48 In other words, more housing was being constructed each year in response to demand, but financial limitations caused constructors to sacrifice the quality of living space.
Anti-Gaullist politicians even criticized the government’s approach to the physical construction of collective housing. In November 1959, Georges Coudray (MRP) offered a harsh critique of the grands ensembles. According to Coudray, “the conditions of daily life, the family and social life, depend on a good technical production and implantation,” yet the grands
46 Georges Coudray, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (23 November 1959): 2833. 47 Michel Debré, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (15 January 1959): 30. 48 Roger Devemy, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (3 July 1959): 1301.
47
ensembles do not accomplish this goal. He presents three major flaws of the grands ensembles: the first being the “bigness” of the complexes, which to him is nonsensical in the French landscape; the second is the lack of good sound insulation between housing units, which
“suppresses all intimacy, and makes rest difficult when one can hear all the noises from one’s neighbors”; the third is the absence of adequate social services, such as educational, administrative, and cultural facilities.49 It is unlikely that this criticism was motivated politically since at this time the MRP supported de Gaulle and the young Fifth Republic; furthermore, the grands ensembles to which Coudray refers had already been built by 1959 and were therefore unrelated to the new Gaullist government.
The flaws of HLM extended beyond construction’s end; rent levels and allotment policies also threatened the projects’ success. First of all, even rents for HLM apartments were not as low as they initially appeared because further costs were added to basic rent for necessary amenities, such as “collective heating, hot water, cold water…green spaces.”50 Another difficulty was providing rent controlled housing while ensuring profitable and quality construction. In order to avoid consequences of rent-freezes seen earlier, rent levels had to increase according to increasing construction costs. Yet higher rents prevented the most disadvantaged from accessing
HLM. For example, Albert Denvers argued in 1961 that “if the price of land becomes excessive, even exorbitant, it will no longer be a question of social construction. Compromised between the price of land and rent ceilings…social construction will become more and more difficult.”51 In other words, the act of construction did not necessarily mean housing for the most disadvantaged if rents remained high; social housing depended on a balance between land prices, construction
49 Georges Coudray, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (23 November 1959): 2831-2832. 50 Jean Royer, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (16 November 1972): 5313. 51 Albert Denvers, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (19 July 1961): 1818.
48
prices, and rent. Furthermore, Francois Billoux pointed out in 1959 that even social housing construction was not effective because its rents could approach 25,000 francs per month, whereas nine out of ten laborers could not even pay the 8,000 to 10,000 francs per month required by HLM.52 Consequently, rents were frequently raised: Michel Rocard describes one instance when, despite promises to increase the rent only by 5%, rent in an HLM complex was actually increased by 10%.53 Olivier Guichard, then the minister of Public Works, explained that
HLM societies were able to increase rents by 10% in order to “balance their budget.”54 In this way, the success of the grands ensembles was hindered by administrative reasons because state intervention could not ensure quality, quantity, and promote investment at the same time.
Allotment procedures for HLM indicated a greater ambiguity about the responsibilities of a social state and the purpose of social housing. Was social housing intended to raise the living standard for the middle and working classes, or to provide the homeless with homes?
Communists insisted that social housing be provided to the most disadvantaged under the private market, but allotment practices established by the Gaullist government suggested that housing in the grands ensembles existed for those could pay for it. It is important to note that this philosophy was developed by the government actually responsible for funding the projects, unlike the Communists, who did not have to defend their approach financially. In 1959, the
Minister of the Interior was told that North African families could not afford even to live in
HLM. He responded that “the HLM organizations are in charge of balancing their budget, and therefore have the right to refuse the demands of families who, not having regular or sufficient
52 Francois Billoux, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (23 November 1959): 2834. 53 Michel Rocard, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (9 November 1972): 4975. 54 Olivier Guichard, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (9 November 1972): 4975.
49
resources, do not offer the required guarantees.”55 In the same way, Minister of Construction
Pierre Sudreau noted that “HLM organizations, in order to balance their budget and reimburse the state for the advances that have been given to them, have the necessity to insist on guarantees concerning resources and creditworthiness of the candidates and to avoid families with charges disproportionate to their means.”56 It follows that HLM organizations preferred families who could comfortably pay their bills and therefore did not accept the most disadvantaged of the population. Some politicians intervened on the behalf of those citizens “whose resources don’t allow them to benefit from HLM.”57 In 1963, René Kaës noted that “the social classes that are most disadvantaged, either by their revenues or by the size of their family, are those that feel the most financial difficulties.”58 Even by 1972, allocation procedures had not changed; a Mr.
Toutain pointed out that there are “certain people who cannot benefit from HLM social housing because of the mediocrity of their resources.”59 Mr. Toutain’s report highlights the contradiction of HLM allotment procedures: faced with such high demand and the need to pay back government loans, HLM organizations chose safe candidates who would be able to pay rent. The
HLM policies of the Gaullist government suggest that the housing projects were intended for those who could afford to live there; the French Left, on the other hand, seemed to believe that
HLM functioned to provide housing to all in need. In other words, social housing did not created marked differences in the lives of residents beyond adequate shelter. Kaës noted that “the act of
55 Pierre Chatenet, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (28 Decemb23 1959): 3710. 56 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (17 May 1960): 906. 57 Mr. Lecocq, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (25 June 1959): 1078. 58 Kaës, Vivre, 93-94. 59 Mr. Toutain, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (13 November 1972): 5115.
50
having moved in with or without prior savings had impacts that continued to manifest themselves several years after arrival in the grand ensemble.”60
Those who demanded housing and did not receive it became increasingly discontented with systematic “injustices.” In 1959, André Fanton reported that HLMs’ quota systems prevented organizations from allocating housing to those who most needed it because “they are required to reserve housing for certain cases determined by certain statistics.” Consequently, in many cases, candidates who had only been waiting for a year or several months were given housing before other candidates who had been waiting longer.61 However, it is not clear whether this was a result of allotment practices based on ability to pay, or simply corruption.
Quotas were just one aspect of larger bureaucratic flaws of the HLM allotment system that were critiqued by politicians and their constituents. According to social housing candidates, the allotment decisions appeared extremely arbitrary and varied despite similar candidacies. For example, a Mr. Bourgoin drew attention to one case where a father of three had been waiting since 1951 for a larger apartment, while a friend in “exactly the same conditions” and who had only been waiting since 1954, was given an apartment. According to Mr. Bourgoin, the injustices of HLM allotment were causing harm to disadvantaged French people.62 Later that year, a Mr.
Sanson reported the same problem, noting that “against all reason, the initial choice [of appropriate candidates, made by HLM commissions] leads one to believe that it is left to chance”63. These reports represented an effort to promote transparency in HLM allotment- decision processes. Yet little progress was made even after two years: in 1961, Mr. Lepidi
60 Kaës, Vivre, 94. 61 André Fanton, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (20 November 1959): 2683. 62 Mr. Bourgoin, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (12 November 1959): 2376. 63 Mr. Sanson, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (11 December 1959): 3348.
51
presented the same dilemma as his predecessors in 1959. He mentioned that, “without wanting to question the impartiality or objectivity of housing commissions, he often hears claims that some
HLM are attributed to families less disadvantaged than others.”64 Other politicians opposed to
Gaullist administration choices argued that occurrences like these were outright “scandals”: the same year, André Fanton asserted that “those in the Parisian region would like the rules of HLM housing attribution modified, rules that are behind a permanent scandal, and for the ill-housed, the cause of uneasiness made more obvious each day.”65
Despite claims that HLM were allocated arbitrarily, the state claimed impartiality. In response to concern for Algerian families’ access to housing, Prime Minister Debré reassured
Mr. Lauriei in 1960 that “Algerian workers and their families can benefit from the same conditions of possible housing offered to the metropolitan population.”66 Similarly, Pierre
Sudreau declared in 1960 that “Muslim workers coming to France with their family can make the same claims to HLM as the rest of the population, and are subject to the same rules of attribution.”67 Whether or not these claims were actually met was another story. In 1960, for example, Mr. Baylot argued that “no measure had been taken to facilitate the housing of those coming back from North Africa.”68 Furthermore, a M. Fenton wondered in the next year why
“candidates for HLM housing have to have ‘French nationality,’” and specifically what that meant for Belgian, Italian, or Polish families.69 The implication of that report was that, despite
64 Mr. Lepidi, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (22 June 1961): 1272. 65 André Fanton, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (11 July 1961): 1633. 66 Michel Debré, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (29 June 1960): 1585. 67 Pierre Sudreau, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (18 July 1960): 1989. 68 Mr. Baylot, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (5 December 1960): 4322. 69 Mr. Fenton, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (25 April 1961): 521.
52
claims that all disadvantaged had equal “access” to low-income housing, in reality those who were ultimately chosen as “desirable residents” were not the most disadvantaged.
Even by 1961, Prime Minister Debré had declared that “Paris and its suburbs are now a topic of shame, remorse, and apprehension.”70 Politicians rallied to address ever-increasing housing needs, but state intervention in the housing market did not resolve the crisis. Indeed, state-sponsored HLM projects seemed to aggravate the frustration of the disadvantaged who still could not access the new housing. During this time, the state struggled to allocate enough money to HLM projects, slowing construction and provoking higher rents to make up the difference.
The fundamental problem remained that, faced with such high demand for housing and financial costs of construction, candidates had to be chosen according to their resources, a decision that effectively questioned the purpose of social housing and its recipients.
70 Michel Debré, “Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale,” Journal officiel de la République Française (22 June 1961): 1227.
53
Conclusion: Contemporary Implications of HLM
The reasons for suburban unrest in HLM complexes today can be traced back to the beginning of the HLM program during the “Thirty Glorious Years.” Structural and social deficiencies of the grands ensembles became apparent soon after their construction, and residents quickly rejected the new housing. The residents of the building projects were physically relegated to the outskirts of the city without easy access to public facilities; furthermore, despite featuring modern amenities, housing in massive complexes was never an ideal living situation.
The grands ensembles functioned almost exclusively to provide quantitative housing relief, yet the architects and supporters of the housing complexes neglected to consider the crucial social aspect of collective housing. Joseph Abram’s discussion of a housing complex in Nantes concisely illustrates the social failure of the grands ensembles: “The major problem at Haut-du-
Lievre, like the majority of French grands ensembles, is the treatment of housing as having a single value, mass produced, but disconnected from a hierarchy likely to give it authentic urban value.”1 In other words, the grands ensembles pushed functionality to its extreme while neglecting the resulting quality. Housing could not stand alone, without other urban elements; rather, it belonged in a “hierarchy” of diverse functions.
When the housing complexes were being built, the Gaullist government struggled with these problems, but changes that addressed residents’ concerns were slow to take form: “it is true that almost all of the first grands ensembles were marred by numerous errors and negligences.
All of these attracted attention and demanded remediation…The reproduction of certain errors is inexcusable.”2 Without significant changes made to address the realities of living needs, the grands ensembles could only ever be a temporary solution to the housing crisis. As a result,
1 Joseph Abram, L’architecture moderne en France (tome 2: 1940-1966) (Paris: Picard, 1999), 125. 2 René Kaës, Vivre dans les grands ensembles (Paris : Les Editions Ouvriers, 1963), 12-13.
54
many of the same structural and social issues still exist in the grands ensembles today.
Systematic efforts to rehabilitate these areas have only begun recently, begging the question why the grands ensembles even continue to exist today. Indeed, the state’s recent approach suggests that it is finally addressing the failures of the grands ensembles by demolishing them completely.
“Since 1994, the destruction of the grands ensembles [has been] the primary approach of the urban renovation politics.” In 2004, almost 11,000 social housing units were demolished. When two 15-story HLM blocks in the grands ensembles at La Courneuve were wrecked that year,
70% of the 800 families living there approved the demolition.3 Yet the question remains: why has the French state allowed its citizens to live in housing that was declared inadequate almost 40 years ago?
I argue that the French state has systematically ignored the most disadvantaged of the population in the realm of social housing ever since the first decades of the HLM program.
Before 1973, the poorest were generally excluded from HLM in the grands ensembles; after the grands ensembles were declared unsuitable living conditions, many of the original residents moved out, leaving a poorer population to move in and deal with the projects’ structural and social deficiencies. During the “Thirty Glorious Years,” the HLM program in the grands ensembles questioned the social responsibility of the French government to its citizens, and the
Gaullist government decided that “social” housing was not intended to provide housing to the poorest of the population. This decision implies who the state recognizes and who it doesn’t:
Jean-Paul Flamand argued that “[social housing] was an experiment in the areas of urbanism, architecture, construction…but also in social engineering, in the sense of creating and disassembling, almost mechanically, social classes in order to make a change more fitting for
3 La destruction de deux barres d’immeubles à la Cité des 4000 de la Courneuve, (France 3, 2004), from ina.fr, 2:04, http://www.ina.fr/fresques/jalons/fiche-media/InaEdu01839/la-destruction-de-deux-barres-d-immeubles-a-la- cite-des-4000-de-la-courneuve.html.
55
society, as believed by its promoters.”4 In other words, the HLM program promoted a particular type of resident that the state considered appropriate for the modernity of the grands ensembles.
During the Gaullist administration, the grands ensembles were accessible primarily by the consumerist working and middle-class population.
The neglect of the poorest continues to define the massive HLM complexes in the French suburbs today. In an interview discussing the “crisis of the suburbs,” Nicolas Sarkozy—then
Minister of the Interior—admitted that “it has been a long time since one has acknowledged what happens [in the suburbs], it has been 30 years since one decided, consciously or unconsciously, to leave them to waste away in their corner by avoiding the problem…Many residents in our neighborhoods feel abandoned by the Republic!”5 This study demonstrates that the abandonment of the poorest by the Republic is not a new trend with respect to social housing. The HLM program administered during de Gaulle’s presidency set the foundation for the unrest and resentment now felt by residents of the massive HLM projects. From its beginning, the French social housing program was a systemic form of exclusion, and the full extent of its consequences is still being realized.
4 Jean-Paul Flamand, Loger le peuple: essai sur l'histoire du logement social en France (Paris: La Découverte, 1989), 13. 5 Denis Jeambar, “Une interview exclusive: Nicolas Sarkozy contre-attaque,” L’Express.fr, November 17, 2005, accessed March 23, 2011, http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/nicolas-sarkozy-contre-attaque_483925.html.
56
Bibliography
Abram, Joseph. L’architecture moderne en France (tome 2: 1940-1966). Paris: Picard, 1999.
Beecher, Jonathan. Charles Fourier: The Visionary and His World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Berstein, Serge. The Republic of de Gaulle, 1958-1969, trans. Peter Morris. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Biget, Henri. Le logement de l’ouvrier: étude de la législation des habitations à bon marche en France et à l’étranger. Paris: Jouve, 1913.
Blanc-Chaléard, Marie-Claude. "L'habitat immigré à Paris aux XIXe et XXe siècles: mondes à part?" Le mouvement social (1998): 29-50.
Body-Gendrot, Sophie and Catherine de Wenden. Sortir des banlieues: pour en finir avec la tyrannie des territoires. Paris: Autrement, 2007.
Caldwell, Christopher. “Revolting High Rises.” New York Times, November 27, 2005. Accessed March 17, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/magazine/27wwln_essay.html?scp=10&sq=france%20riots %202005&st=cse.
Chamboredon, Jean-Claude, and Madeleine Lemaire. "Proximité spatiale et distance sociale: les grands ensembles et leur peuplement." Revue française de sociologie (1970): 3-33.
Clerc, Paul, and le centre de recherche d'urbanisme. Grands ensembles, banlieues nouvelles: enquête démographique et psycho-sociologique. Institut national d'études démographiques. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1967.
Clout, Hugh. “Ruins and Revival: Paris in the Aftermath of the Second World War.” Landscape Research (2004): 117-139.
———. “Place Annihilation and Urban Reconstruction: The Experience of Four Towns in Brittany, 1940 to 1960.” Geografiska Annaler (2000): 165-180.
———. “Destruction and Revival: The Example of Calvados and Caen, 1940-1965.” Landscape Research (1999): 117-139.
“Débats Parlementaires: Assemblée Nationale.” Journal officiel de la République Française (December 9, 1958 to July 19, 1961 and October 4, 1972 to November 16, 1972).
Dufaux, Frédéric and Annie Fourcaut. Le monde des grands ensembles. Paris: Créaphis, 2004.
57
Effosse, Sabine. “L’enjeu économique de l’habitat collectif en France au temps des Trente Glorieuses.” Revue du Nord (2009): 553-562.
Flamand, Jean-Paul. Loger le peuple: essai sur l'histoire du logement social en France. Paris: La Découverte, 1989.
Fourastié, Jean. Les trente glorieuses: ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975. Paris: Fayard, 1979.
Fourcaut, Annie. “Les premiers grands ensembles en région parisienne: ne pas refaire la banlieue?” French Historical Studies (2004): 195-218.
Gildea, Robert. France Since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Girling, John. France: Political and Social Change. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Hazemann, R. “Les Habitations – Santé – Famille.” Echanges (1962): 16-19.
“Inauguration d’HLM à Ivry.” Office national de radiodiffusion télévision française. 1 December 1955. Television.
Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE). “Étrangers selon la région de résidence de 1946 à 1999.” Accessed March 4, 2011. http://insee.fr/fr/themes/detail.asp?reg_id=0&ref_id=irrp99pipe&page=irweb/rp99pipe/dd/rp99pi pe_retrospectif.htm.
INSEE. “Naissances depuis 1900.” Accessed March 4, 2011. http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?reg_id=0&ref_id=NATTEF02218.
INSEE. “Population en France Métropolitaine.” Accessed March 4, 2011. http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?reg_id=0&ref_id=NATnon02145.
INSEE. “Population totale et étrangère de 1946 à 1990.” Accessed March 4, 2011. http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?reg_id=0&ref_id=NATTEF02218.
Jeambar, Denis. “Une interview exclusive: Nicolas Sarkozy contre-attaque,” L’Express.fr, November 17, 2005. Accessed March 23, 2011. http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/nicolas-sarkozy-contre-attaque_483925.html.
Joubert, Claude. Inauguration d’HLM à Ivry. December 1, 1955. Office national de radiodiffusion télévision française. Television.
Judt, Tony. Postwar: a History of Europe Since 1945. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.
Kaës, René. Vivre dans les grands ensembles. Paris: Les Editions Ouvriers, 1963.
58
Kunz, Diane. “The Marshall Plan Reconsidered: A Complex of Motives.” Foreign Affairs (1997): 162-170.
La destruction de deux barres d’immeubles à la Cité des 4000 de la Courneuve. June 23, 2004. France 3. Television.
Loiseau, Maud and Catherine Bonvalet. “L’impact de la loi de 1948 sur les trajectoires résidentielles en Ile-de-France.” Population (2005): 351-366.
Loupiac, Claude, and Christine Mengin. L'architecture moderne en France (tome 1. 1889-1940). Paris: Picard, 1997.
Mengin, Christine. “La solution des grands ensembles.” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'Histoire (1999): 105-111.
Merlin, Pierre. New Towns: Regional Planning and Development. Translated by Margaret Sparks. London: Methuen, 1971.
Newsome, W. Brian. “The Rise of the Grands Ensembles: Government, Business, and Housing in Postwar France.” Historian (2004): 793-816.
———. French Urban Planning, 1940-1968: The Construction and Deconstruction of an Authoritarian System. New York: Peter Lang, 2009.
Nora, Simon and Bertrand Eveno. Rapport sur l’amélioration de l’habitat ancien. Paris: Documentation française, 1975.
Pinçon, Michel. Cohabiter: groupes sociaux et modes de vie dans une cité HLM. Paris: Ministère de l'urbanisme et du logement, Plan construction, 1982.
———. “Habitat et modes de vie: la cohabitation des groupes sociaux dans un ensemble HLM.” Revue française de sociologie (1981): 523-547.
———. Les HLM [Habitations à Loyer Modéré]: structure sociale de la population logée; agglomération de Paris, 1968. Paris: C.S.U., 1976.
Sabbagh, Pierre. La construction: entretien avec Pierre Sudreau, ministre de la construction. November 6, 1958. Office national de radiodiffusion télévision française. Television.
Sellier, Henri, and A. Bruggeman. Le problème du logement, son influence sur les conditions de l'habitation et l'aménagement des villes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927.
Spencer, Michael. Charles Fourier. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.
59
Toubon, Jean-Claude, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (France), and Direction régionale de Paris. Les conditions de logement des étrangers en région d'île de France. Paris: INSEE, Direction régionale de Paris, 1979.
Vallet, Élisabeth. “Émeutes en France: la haine, ou l'histoire d'une ségrégation.” Le Devoir, November 10, 2005. Accessed March 17, 2011. http://www.ledevoir.com/international/europe/94682/emeutes-en-france-la-haine-ou-l-histoire-d- une-segregation.
Vayssière, Bruno. Reconstruction, Déconstruction: le hard French, ou l’architecture française des trente glorieuses. Paris: Picard, 1988.
Veyssiere, G. “Les causes de la construction des grands ensembles.” Echanges (1962): 6-8.
Villechaise, Agnès. “La banlieue sans qualités: absence d'identité collective dans les grands ensembles.” Revue française de sociologie (1997): 351-374.
Voldman, Danièle. “La loi de 1948 sur les loyers.” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire (1988): 91-102.
———. La reconstruction des villes françaises de 1940 à 1954: histoire d’une politique. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997.
Wahl, Nicholas. The Fifth Republic: France’s New Political System. New York: Random House, 1959.
Wakeman, Rosemary. “Reconstruction and the Self-help Housing Movement: The French Experience.” Housing Studies (1999): 355-366.
Wihtol de Wenden, Catherine, et al. Banlieues... Intégration Ou Explosion? Paris: Arléa, 1993.
Williams, Philip, and Martin Harrison. Politics and Society in de Gaulle’s Republic. London: Longman, 1971.
Epigraph: 50 ans qui ont changé notre quotidien: mon logement, (May 24, 2010), documentary broadcast by M6, from dailymotion.com, http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdmcq6_50-ans-qui-ont- change-notre-quotidi_news.
60