Gas, electricity, petroleum products: although energy prices have fallen since 2022 on wholesale markets, energy poverty continues to affect millions of households in France. That is, anyone who experiences “in your home, particular difficulties in accessing the energy supply [pour] the satisfaction of their basic needs, [du fait] of the inadequacy of its resources or the conditions of its habitat”according to the legal definition of 2010.
For the fourth consecutive year, around twenty structures involved in this field will jointly organize a day to fight against this scourge, on Tuesday, November 12. The objective, according to its organizers, is to make visible such “Social, health and environmental injustice [touchant] 12 million people in France ». This count dates from 2013, the year of a survey by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. “This statistical poverty perhaps also reflects a form of political disinterest”critic Hélène Denise, head of “housing and climate” advocacy at the Abbé Pierre Foundation, who opened the event.
“Living in unworthy or degraded housing, poorly insulated, poorly ventilated, means living with the risk of having respiratory problems, migraines, underlines Alexandre Lagogué, general director of Compagnons constructors, an association specialized in helping the self-rehabilitation of homes. It is living in a vicious circle that can socially exclude people, which can also harm mental health, with difficulty projecting oneself. »
Some indicators, better updated, attest to a persistent scourge. For example, the energy effort ratio calculates the place of energy-related expenses in relation to income. When this rate is at least 8% and it is a household that is among the poorest 30% in the country, by convention this household is considered to be in energy poverty. According to the last ten years, at least one in ten households is still in this situation. That is, around 3.2 million homes in 2022, according to the latest ministerial data; that year, they would have been even more without the government’s “tariff shield,” an aid system against the inflation crisis.
“Feeling of shame”
Another indicator: the number of interventions for unpaid bills exceeded one million in 2023. If electricity and gas outages decrease (more than 265,000, or -33% compared to 2019), electricity outages are increasing (almost 736,000 , or + 168%), according to the national energy mediator, an independent public authority.
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