You must not be discriminated against in access to housing regardless of whether it is provided by the state, a municipality or a private provider.
Discrimination in access to state and municipal housing in France is prohibited on any grounds.
important Providers of private housing are all bound by the prohibition of discrimination, even if it is not part of their business. For example, any landlord (private or public) or estate agency who wishes to rent a house or apartment is forbidden to exclude an applicant on the grounds of origin, age, gender, family situation or any other ground prohibited by law.
Discrimination in providing access to housing may include cases where a service provider or a landlord refuses to sell or rent out a house or apartment, makes degrading or insulting remarks or offers you different terms in the contract, such as a higher price just because you belong to a group of people with certain characteristics.
example Discrimination may occur where a landlord refuses to rent an apartment to a person just because he/she is black or belongs to a sexual minority, such as homosexuals.
Discrimination in providing access to housing can also happen when a landlord asks the estate agency, to which they have entrusted the search for a tenant, to exclude certain applicants on the basis of a prohibited ground.
example An estate agency, at the request of the landlord, refused to rent to a person of North African origin. Both the agency and the landlord were convicted for discrimination.
Discrimination can also happen when a landlord or estate agency asks for additional guarantees from only certain applicants because they are not French, or because they are young, retired, a single parent etc.
example A landlord asked for additional guarantees from the tenants (he required them to provide within two days two additional guarantors who were required to produce three payslips and a civil status form) after having learned that one of the tenants had AIDS. He was convicted for discrimination.
French law explicitly prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender, race or ethnic origin and disability and other grounds in providing access to housing. In certain cases housing may be provided to a specific type of client by applying the exception of genuine requirement.
For example, housing adapted for disabled people (such as apartments with better accessibility, that are located on the ground floor, with larger doors for wheelchairs etc.) will be given in priority to disabled people.
What human rights violation may there be?
The prohibition of discrimination will be violated if you are denied housing or offered individual, more disadvantageous terms in a contract only because you possess certain characteristics which are recognized as prohibited grounds, such as age, religion or race.
How to complain
If you believe that you may have been discriminated against by a private landlord or housing business, you may file a complaint to the Defender of Rights or to the civil court of general jurisdiction. If your complaint concerns a problem with a residential lease, you can take your case to a specific judge of the civil court called “protection litigation judge” (juge des contentieux de la protection).
If you believe that you have been discriminated against by a state or municipal authority in charge of housing, you may also submit a complaint to the Defender of Rights, or directly to the administrative court.
Because discrimination is a criminal offence in French law, you can also take legal action before the criminal court by filing a complaint to the police station or prosecutor.
Read more about how to complain.