Confédération nationale du logement

The Confédération nationale du logement (CNL) is a French association under the 1901 law, founded in 1916 during the First World War. It is a national tenants' union engaged in the right to housing and the improvement of living conditions. The CNL is present in most French regions and departments and brings together more than 4,600 local amicales. It has around 70,000 member families. The organisation is based on the principle that everyone should be able to access housing that is safe, healthy and affordable regardless of means, commonly referred to as the 'right to housing'. It can claim a strong presence in elections of tenant representatives in social housing (HLM), with more than 800 representatives elected to the boards of HLM organisations and EPL. Since 1973, the association has broadened its scope to include people acquiring property, arguing that they are ultimately 'tenants of the banks'. Since 1980, the CNL has been an approved consumer association. It campaigns for the preservation of purchasing power and the improvement of daily life for families. During the 2024 legislative elections, the CNL joined the Nouveau Front populaire. The CNL sits on all consultation and mediation bodies concerning housing and consumption.

The history of the CNL begins in the midst of the First World War. Between 1916 and 1939, three major phenomena shaped the organisation: a process of progressive unification of different housing activist movements, the development of a first programmatic base, and the transformation of its relationship to politics. On 11 April 1916, the constitutive congress of the 'Union fédérale des locataires de France et des colonies' was held, inaugurating a wave of regroupings in the 1920s. In the difficult wartime context, which even led the government to enact a moratorium on rents, representatives of various federations, local structures and small tenants' associations decided to unite, not without difficulty. These structures were marked by the three great ideologies of the left of the time, roughly equal in number throughout the 1920s: anarcho-syndicalism, 'reformist' socialists (who continued their commitment in the SFIO after the war) and 'revolutionary' socialists who joined the SFIC-PCF at Tours. Despite the stated desire to promote unity, the 1920s were marked by divisions, exclusions and reunifications, such as the purge of Parisian 'reformist elements' in 1922 or the exclusion of communists between 1925 and 1962. Despite internal tensions, the Union confédérale des locataires (founded in 1919) constituted a first set of demands during the interwar period, which had an impact on the organisation's history after 1945. Initially conceived as the body defending the rent moratorium and demanding the end of advance payment, the UCL soon broadened its mission by considering housing as a 'public service' (L'éveil des locataires, Autumn 1919, taken up by the French Communist Party in 1929 as a programme, 'Le logement, service public') and rapidly demanding the 'right to housing' (editorial by Dieulle, general secretary of the UCL, in Le Réveil des locataires, spring 1923). Hygiene was also a growing concern, joining on this point the desires of the reformist bourgeoisie, without however considering the resolution of poor housing and health problems as vectors of social peace. In 1936, the Popular Front raised great hopes in the organisation. These hopes were quickly disappointed, and the UCL denounced through a 1937 caricature the 'forgotten wagon' of the 1936 laws: rents, demands of HBM (habitations bon marché), poor housing and health. The interwar period was also a time when the UCL's relations with institutions and politics were defined and deepened. Due to its anarcho-syndicalist origins, which tended to equate owners and bosses, conceiving the State as the superstructure for the defence and extension of the capitalist regime, the transformation of its relationship to politics was not without friction. Despite tensions, three types of institutionalisation emerged, relative if compared to that of the late 20th century. The UCL played an important role in the arbitration commissions of 1918, which aimed to rule on rent reductions and deadlines following non-payment of rents during the war. Joint bodies – composed of two representatives of owners and two of tenants – they were however more akin for the UCL to 'labour courts of housing', a form of syndicalism already known before the war. Relations with municipalities also changed, partly under the impetus of communist municipalities expanding around Paris. Although candidacy in any election by activists of the organisation was sometimes considered a betrayal (as evidenced by the exclusion of Cochon in 1912) or an instrumentalisation of the organisation, the UCL gradually forged strong links with municipal teams. Finally, the organisation changed its relationship with housing institutions, particularly on the question of Habitations bon marché (HBM), which became central. It even encouraged, at the end of the period, the creation of...

• 2024

  The CNL joins the Nouveau Front populaire during the legislative elections.

• 1980

  The CNL becomes an approved consumer association.

• 1973

  The association broadens its scope to include people acquiring property.

• 1919

  Founding of the Union confédérale des locataires (UCL).

• 1916

  Constitutive congress of the Union fédérale des locataires de France et des colonies on 11 April.

National tenants' union and approved consumer association defending the right to housing.

1. 1Site en constructionlacnl.com
2. 2Confédération nationale du logementwikidata.org
3. 3Confédération nationale du logementfr.wikipedia.org