Speaking to reporters on a visit to Orléans in July last year, Macron had pledged to turn 62 budget Formule 1 hotels into “refugee” shelters and provide “worthy” housing conditions to some 6 000 mainly migrants sleeping rough.
He said at the time: “I want emergency shelters everywhere. I don’t want men and women in the street.”
On Tuesday, Macron said: “We failed.” The French president said the issue “remains a top priority and we will do everything within our power to achieve this goal”.
He added: “That said, we cannot just focus on creating more shelter spaces. You cannot just put someone up in a hotel room and expect them to find their way in life – you won’t be helping them integrate into society.”
Macron also said local government officials were looking at solutions to end the housing crisis. To that effect, the Hemisphere fund has been set up as a “new model for social action”, essentially “privatizing” social housing with taxpayer money.
The announcement launching the fund states: The plan “may also be extended to other areas of social action”.
But, even from a purely financial point of view, this push by Macron to end the housing crisis by privatizating the social sector funding runs counter to the recommendations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The international organization, in an assessment of the social impact funds published in 2016, believes that the system is more expensive than direct funding from public funds, whether they are raised through taxation or by borrowing money at rates lower than the remuneration of private investors.
Ironically, many of the investors in the Hemisphere fund belong to groups pinned for tax evasion practices, notably in the context of Luxleaks (BNP Paribas, Aviva and CNP Assurance).
“If the state considers that it does not have enough money to finance the creation of the thousands of new accommodation announced in the asylum and immigration law, why not start by strengthening its capacity to recover the taxes owed by these companies?” Anne-Sophie Simpere, an investigative journalist asked.
While Hemisphere announced better control of the quality of accommodation and support, the fund is actually used as a source of profit for unworthy migration policies.
The state’s plan to purchase the Formule 1 hotels and convert them into shelters has been met with controversy.
In the Pyrenees town of Séméac locals built a wall in front of a hotel to keep out the 80 or so migrants from moving in, the Daily Mail reported.
In Bailleul, northern France, police unions called the project to house migrants in the town’s Formule 1 hotels as “pure madness”.