Sub-letting at sub-zero

As we all go about our last minute Christmas shopping, let’s spare a thought for a certain Jean-Paul Bolufer.

In the space of two days he has had his fine reputation picked to pieces by the national newspapers and now finds himself not only out of a job but also homeless – of sorts.

But hold back on the sympathy front a moment for Bolufer has got what many would consider his just rewards.

The 61-year-old (now former) high-ranking civil servant was until today the right hand man of none other than the French housing minister, Christine Boutin, and as such has been instrumental in drawing up government proposals for an overhaul of the country’s stock of HLMs (Habitation à Loyer Modéré or low-rent council housing).

A noble task indeed at a time when there is a dire national housing shortage with an estimated 1.5 million people on the waiting list and more than 400,000 families with incomes above the official entitlement threshold reckoned to be occupying HLMs.

Except it now transpires that since 1981 Bolufer and his family have in fact themselves been renting a subsidised apartment in Paris and are currently paying €1,200 per month for accommodation with a rentable value four times that amount. Furthermore, when the highly paid career civil servant’s job took him to other parts of the country, he sub-let the property – for 17 years in total.

When challenged, Bolufer initially maintained that he couldn’t recall the exact amount he paid but believed it to be somewhere near the market norm, and besides he had done nothing to break the terms of his rental agreement. He was, he claimed, being made the fall guy. Others in similar circumstances to his own, he said, were and still are living in accommodation subsidised by the City of Paris authorities.

Sadly only too true, and it’s not the first time high officialdom’s abuse of complex housing regulations have hit the headlines. In 1996, the then prime minister Alain Juppé was forced to hand over the keys of luxury apartments he and members of his family were renting from the City of Paris authorities at reduced rates. And in 2005 the finance minister Hervé Gaymard was forced to resign over a similar scandal.

To an extent though Bolufer has been hoist by his own petard. Just last month he appeared on national radio to express his outrage at the number of families living in HLMs whose monthly income was above the threshold entitlement.

Clearly the man was speaking from personal experience.

With Bolufer now demanding that a list be published of all those currently benefiting from long-term rental agreements with the City of Paris, the timing of the revelations could not have been worse for his former boss.

Boutin is battling with organisations representing the capital’s homeless, who maintain the government has created only half of the 27,000 places in sheltered accommodation promised by the end of the year.

Bolufer was her special advisor in negotiations with those organisations.

Presumably with the money he has made from sub-letting his apartment over the years and the not insubstantial salary and pension he will have accrued, Bolufer will somehow be able to struggle through the holiday period without too much difficulty.

The same, sadly cannot be said for the homeless man found dead in this morning after another night on the capital’s streets in subzero temperatures.