© AFP
– Valérie Létard in the Senate, where she was vice-president.
You probably don’t know her name. The new Minister of Housing and Urban Renewal, Valerie Letard, who succeeds Guillaume Kasbarian on the occasion of the formation of the Barnier government, is nevertheless very well known in the sector and, more broadly, in politics. Born on October 13, 1962 in Orchies (North), close to Jean-Louis Borloo, she was Secretary of State during the five-year term of Nicolas Sakozy and Vice-President of the Senate from 2017 to 2023. With Dominique Estrosi-Sassone, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann and Viviane Artigalas, she is one of the “four funny ladies” of the upper house of Parliament to have defended Action Logement tooth and nail, in recent years, against governments which criticized the 1% employers for its status as a “sleeping plump”, endowed with very substantial cash but insufficiently used to build housing for employees.
The Senate, Valérie Létard had chosen to leave it by not standing for re-election on September 24, 2023, after having served there for 20 years. Twenty years punctuated by his information report on “urban policy, a springboard for residents” in 2022, or his 2021 bill aimed at promoting housing in so-called rural revitalization zones. Not to mention his evaluation report on the law on urban solidarity and renewal, which notably established quotas of 20% to 25% of social housing in cities.
Michel Barnier: the government’s hot issues
Valérie Létard had refused the post of Minister of Housing in 2017
Valérie Létard was eager to join the government. In 2017, at the dawn of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, She had declined the Head of State’s offer to be Minister of Housing and the City of the government of Edward Philippe. Although “extremely honored and touched”the head of the UDI in the Nord region did not see herself at the time campaigning for En Marche!, the presidential party. In 2022, her name had circulated among the possible successors to Jean Castex at Matignon. And, in the wake of the early legislative elections of July 7, it was rumored that Valérie Létard, elected on this occasion as deputy of the Nord, could be the “plan B» macronists in the event of Yaël Braun-Pivet’s failure to regain the presidency of the National Assembly.
Is it because of a “unprecedented housing crisis”as she wrote on the social network X on September 17, that she has finally accepted the post of Minister of Housing? “It’s time for action”she wrote in any case, still on X, on September 18, after a lunch organized by the French Building Federation with all the parliamentarians specializing in housing issues, ahead of the presentation of the 2025 Budget by the government. Today, Valérie Létard is on the other side of the fence. To defend housing “from the inside”? Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Union sociale pour l’habitat, which brings together social housing organizations, welcomes in any case on the social network X the appointment of a “full-fledged minister, finally”, while housing was only a delegated ministry in the governments of recent years. “The appointment of Valérie Letard will raise a lot of hope”, adds Jacques Chanut, president of the insurer SMA-BTP and former president of the French Building Federation (FFB) and Action Logement. The hope of “emergency measures to resolve the housing crisis”, for Olivier Salleron, the current president of the FFB. On X, Valérie Letard promises them “the co-construction, with housing stakeholders, of concrete solutions to respond to the emergency”. It is a very concrete measure that the National Housing Confederation, an association defending tenants, is asking the new minister to take: the abandonment of the bill on the development of an affordable housing offer. Presented at the beginning of May in the Council of Ministers, this text plans in particular to put an end to “social housing for life”.
