The Sheltering Sky

France, long one of the most enlightened nations in the world, is backward to the point of primitivism when it comes to putting a roof over people's heads. A fort night ago Socialist Deputy Albert Gazier, member of the Committee for Economic Affairs, submitted a shocking report to the French National Assembly: "The average age of buildings in Paris is 83 years. One-quarter of all apartments have no running water. The number of Parisians who are forced to live in single hotel rooms is estimated at 400,000.

"In the provinces, [the average age of buildings] is 120 years. Of a rural popula tion of 20 million, only a third have running water in their homes. In Brittany more than half of the houses lack the most elementary comfort, and 45% of them have earth floors.

"Twenty-five percent of all couples who married in 1948 are still looking for shelter; they either live with their parents, or they are forced to stay in hotels and furnished rooms without kitchens." France, he added, ranks 15th among modern nations in building activity, be hind even Poland. Only Hungary and Rumania rank lower.

Gazier blamed the sorry situation on lack of initiative, excessive costs and old-fashioned building methods. Being a Socialist, he did not add another of France's basic difficulties -- bureaucracy.

Ye Olde Housing. Deputy Gazier told only half of a sad story that helps explain France's divisions, frustrations and sullen hatred. More than 2,000,000 French families live in houses built before the Battle of Waterloo: P: 175,000 families live in houses built under the reign of Francis I (1515-47).

P: 200,000 families live in houses dating back to Henry IV (1589-1610).

P: 500,000 families live in houses of the Louis XIII period (1610-43).

P: 1,250,000 families live in houses of the Louis XV period (1715-74).

In Paris there are 16 Hots insalubres, insanitary areas (totaling 600 acres) repeatedly declared unfit for habitation, where there are no toilets, no running water, no gas or electricity, but whose crumbling buildings house 180,000 people.

Also in Paris are an estimated 2,000 people without any homes whatsoever, whole families who, any winter's night, may be seen camped on the Metro gratings.

For years le probleme de I'appartement has been a chief topic of French conversation. In the swank Neuilly and Passy districts of Paris there are many big new apartment buildings where an apartment can be bought for from 2,000,000 to 10,000,000 francs ($28,500), but cannot be rented: the contractors, short of liquid capital, demand a lump sum. In the suburbs, numbers of municipally owned apartment houses have gone up, but they are for functionaries and privileged workers, and the priority list is long. The great mass of French people looking for a home are left to grapple with les corbeaux (the ravens), the landlords; or they must deal with the tenants of pegged-rent apartments who sublet at exorbitant rates.

In an effort to keep living costs down, the government froze rents after the war. A comfortable four-room apartment, if the owner lived in it before the war, is pegged at about $12 a month; he often sublets two or three rooms for $30 a month each and pockets $60 to $90 without lifting a finger. The landlord, getting only the official $12 a month, cannot afford to pay taxes and keep up repairs. Result: no repairs are made, and many apartment buildings are slowly rotting away.

Building Pains. A French couple who would rather build than buy a rickety old house applies to the government, waits 15 months while the application is processed through a dozen separate departments before reaching Credit Foncier, the nationalized credit institution which may help them finance their project. Permission granted, the French couple then has to deal with the guild-conscious French architect and his seven fat handbooks entitled La Serie Centrale des Architectes, which lay down exactly what may be done about building a house, in terms suitable for the age of Charlemagne. After the architect comes the French builder, a race apart from all others.

In France there are 208,250 building contractors, 90% of whom employ fewer than six workers. The smallest contract is sublet to a myriad of tiny enterprises. If they have the luck to find an honest contractor, the French couple may have the pleasure of watching squads of carpenters, masons, plasterers and plumbers move on and off the job with scant regard for each other or for the order of their work, and of seeing walls lie bare for months at a time. The average time to complete a French house: 2 1/2 years.

Last week France's Reconstruction Ministry announced "Operation Million," a scheme to provide 25,000 small, three-room apartments to low-income families at a cost of 1,000,000 francs ($2,850) per unit. Warned the ministry: "Success . . . will depend mainly upon the team spirit which will animate civil servants, local authorities, architects, contractors, technicians and artisans." At week's end, French architects, displeased by the size of the fee offered them, notified the ministry that Operation Million did not interest them.

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