Maurice Blanc

The Impact of Social Mix Policies in France

In France, a Housing Act, called Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain (Solidarity and Urban Renewal), came into force in 2000. Its main aim is to challenge segregation in housing and to strengthen solidarity among citizens. It promotes a tenure mix through legal requirements: in urban areas, every commune should reach a minimum of 20 per cent social housing in its housing stock before 2020. This paper attempts to explain why policy makers believe in the virtues of a tenure mix. The second aim is to assess the discrepancies between the rhetorical level of policy aims and the pragmatic level of policy outputs, raising methodological issues on the relevance of the communal scale for the measure of segregation and social mix. The conclusion raises paradoxical issues: social class segmentation resists social mixing more strongly than ethnic segmentation; the French social mix policy strengthens ghettos and hinders the right to decent housing for the very poor.

Housing segregation and the poor: New trends in French social rented housing

Abstract Traditionally, French social housing was housing low‐paid workers with a regular job. The very poor were in private dilapidated housing. Today a new pattern is emerging: the very poor and the deprived are in the most dilapidated fraction of social housing. Far from improving their social integration, dilapidated social housing estates are stigmatizing them. Social tenants are still second‐class citizens.

Participation et médiation dans la recherche en sciences sociales : une perspective transactionnelle

La recherche en sciences sociales est engluee dans des schemas binaires?: recherche fondamentale et appliquee, coupure epistemologique et reflexivite, etc. Il faut les combiner, dans un processus transactionnel. Toute recherche en sciences sociales est participative, mais a des degres variables?: de la simple information de la population jusqu’a la coproduction de la recherche. La recherche participative contribue au renforcement de la puissance d’agir (empowerment) des populations demunies, materiellement et culturellement. Le chercheur devient un mediateur engage, ou un «?passeur?» de frontieres culturelles et sociales. Malgre les malentendus qui l’entourent en France, le travail social communautaire fait place a la recherche participative et elle contribue a la constitution d’un espace public local de confrontation et de debat democratique.