Summary: | In French law, slums are described as “unhealthy” and “irreparable” areas. Since the 2000s, accommodation has been created to rehouse slum residents. Many solutions have been developed: slum clearance, in most cases, and sometimes rehousing in new accommodation. This housing has usually been short-term accommodation, such as cabins or temporary prefabricated buildings, which raises the question of how to explain the paradox of the governmental decision to rehouse the residents of irreparable slums in housing which is itself designed to be demolished. This analysis is based on a study conducted in Saint-Denis (Paris region, France) on the rehousing of the residents of the Hanul slum during the 2010s. We will analyse how the notion of irreparability applies to both slums and to the new housing offered to their inhabitants. Then, we will demonstrate how this way of dealing with slums simply further marginalises those rehoused in this way, by treating them as equally irreparable.
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