On 13 February 2025, the Collectif des Associations pour le Logement (Collective of Housing Associations) initiated two major legal actions against the French State, challenging its persistent failure to comply with its obligations relating to the right to housing and the right to emergency accommodation. These proceedings are supported by a broad coalition of civil society organisations.
Failure to enforce the right to housing (DALO)
The first legal action concerns the enforceable right to housing (DALO). Despite having their situations formally recognised as priority and urgent, more than 106,000 households remain without access to decent housing. These include people living on the streets or in emergency shelters for extended periods, households threatened with eviction without adequate rehousing solutions, and individuals and families living in unfit, substandard or severely overcrowded housing conditions.
The Collectif argues that the State’s continued inaction constitutes a systemic breach of its legal obligations, rendering the DALO mechanism ineffective and depriving tens of thousands of people of the protection guaranteed by law.
Failure to guarantee the right to emergency accommodation
The second legal action addresses the State’s failure to guarantee the right to emergency accommodation. Across France, thousands of people — including men, women and children — remain homeless, forced to survive on the streets, on pavements, in tents or in informal settlements. This situation persists despite the clear legal requirement to provide unconditional access to emergency accommodation to anyone in need.
The Collectif denounces long-standing structural shortcomings and an insufficient supply of emergency accommodation places, which continue to expose people to serious risks to their health, dignity and lives.
Legal analysis and explanations
The legal reasoning underpinning both cases is explained in detail by the lawyers representing the Collectif in two long-format videos (in French), published on YouTube:
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Right to housing (DALO):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXUf1K9V76E -
Emergency accommodation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6hjdCGJcjs
These videos complement shorter formats shared on social media. The availability of English subtitles may depend on YouTube’s automatic captioning settings.
