As of Jan. 1, the Dalo Law went into effect. The law makes le droit de logement, or right to shelter, un droit opposable, that is, a right that any citizen can petition the state to enforce. Le droit de logement is not to be confused with le droit d'hébergement, according to this document, though I'm not sure I can explain the difference. As you may recall, the law was passed last March in the wake of demonstrations by Les Enfants de Don Quichotte, who established a tent city along the Canal Saint-Martin. Yet it seems that it is not only the homeless who are availing themselves of the right to petition the state for a roof. This article describes a student who is living in Paris on 500 euros a month, not enough to rent a studio, so that he is forced to "live with friends." Yet he too went down to the prefecture to claim his right to housing, only to be driven away by the long lines. Now the bureaucrats will have to sort and presumably prioritize the various claims, since there is not enough housing to meet the demand (although the law also provides incentives for the construction of new low-cost housing units).
Here we have a paradigm of contemporary governance and its woes. A complex social problem is ignored until a media-savvy movement raises its profile by staging a protest designed to generate pathos via televised images. Legislation is hastily cobbled together to prove that the government cares. The complications emerge the moment implementation begins. A substantial bureaucracy will have to be put in place to handle them. The unforeseen costs of the program mount, while the visibility of the problem recedes. The potential for "working the system" is obvious, and abuses will tend to discredit the worthy efforts of sincere civil servants. In five years we'll see the first reform proposals, perhaps une loi Dalo bis.
"Ça va pas être la loi Dalo, ça va être la loi que dalle," says one prospective client. "This isn't going to be the Dalo law, it's going to be the nothing law" (to give a not entirely satisfactory translation). He's perhaps a little harsh, but one understands where he's coming from.