Housing allowances in France

Abstract

For most of the past 60 years, France has had two housing allowance regimes, one for market-priced housing and one linked to the country's intricate system of housing capital subsidies. Neither allowance regime has paid 100% of housing costs. How has this system evolved? What are its market impacts and distributional consequences? This chapter reviews of the main features of the French system of income-related housing allowances. It identifies the context of that system in the country's welfare state and then looks at the design of the system and how it is intended to operate. The third main section looks at the key impacts of housing allowances in France. The chapter then discusses evidence for the failings of the system while the concluding section summarises the main points discussed.