Senators reworked and adopted at first reading on Thursday, a bill for reborn deputies aimed at protecting housing against illicit occupation.
by Claire Anné
“There are many questionable things in this text, but the senators have suppressed the most odious: the sentence of six months in prison against the expelled tenants”, welcomes the president of the federation of solidarity actors , Pascal Brice. The Senate adopted by 252 votes for and 91 votes against, Thursday evening February 2, the bill for Renaissance deputies Guillaume Kasbarian and Aurore Bergé adopted on December 2, 2022 in the Assembly, but it previously made it substantial changes. “He has greatly softened the text for the tenants, and he hardened him against the squatters,” summarizes the secretary general of the magistracy union, Thibaut Spriet.
The Senate did not delete the criminal sanctions created by the deputies against the tenants refusing to leave their accommodation after an expulsion procedure. But if he kept the 7,500 euros fine, he finally renounced the six months in prison, denounced by several associations such as “the return of the prison for debts”, deleted in the 19th e century.
Senators followed the favorable opinion of the government and the law commission to delete this sentence “perceived as stigma”, in the words of the rapporteur of the text, the deputy Les Républicains du Bas-Rhin, André Reichardt. Pascal Brice sees it as “a republican and humanist start in the Senate and Elisabeth Borne”; Thibaut Spriet nevertheless points out a “criminalization of the tenant, while no offense is created against an owner who would not fulfill his obligations to provide decent accommodation”.
“A start Republican and humanist “
Other highly criticized points voted by the Assembly have been reviewed. The judge could continue to grant payment deadlines and then maintain in the premises even if the tenant has not paid the last period of rent (which is very frequent) and if he does not make the request – this Point was considered crucial insofar as 60 % of the tenants do not appear at the hearing. The period between the command to pay and the assignment in court was extended to six weeks – the deputies had shortened it to one month, instead of two currently. The senators, on the other hand, followed the senators on the division by three of the other deadlines for the procedure.
So that a social diagnosis of the tenant can nevertheless be carried out before the hearing, the senators made it compulsory more upstream, which associations consider inappropriate and unfeasible for the social services already overwhelmed. Finally, the role of the coordination commissions for the prevention of rental expulsions has been strengthened, “to the detriment of the judge and with the risk of deciding too early if a tenant is good or in bad faith”, criticism Thibaut Spriet.
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