“HOUSING CRISIS”
Lawmaker Inaki Echaniz pointed to “a housing crisis” and “an explosive increase in the number of furnished tourist accommodation, which has risen from 300,000 to 1.2 million in eight years”.
The tax allowance for furnished tourist accommodation would fall to 50 per cent from 71 per cent, with a cap lowered to €77,700 (US$83,500).
The legislation would slash tax breaks for non-classified tourist properties to 30 per cent from 50 per cent, with a cap of €15,000.
The legislation also gives mayors a “toolbox” to regulate short-term accommodation, Echaniz said in a statement.
It will be possible to cut the rental durations of primary residences to 90 days a year from 120 days now.
Local authorities will also be able to set quotas for furnished tourist accommodation.
“Hundreds of mayors, from Paris to Biarritz, from Annecy to Saint-Malo, are impatiently awaiting this proposed law,” said Laurent Lhardit, lawmaker and deputy mayor of Marseille.
In Marseille, “we are ready to deliberate as soon as the law is promulgated to apply the strictest regulations in France in this area”, added the Socialist MP.
Far-right lawmakers denounced the legislation, slamming an “outrageous and punitive tax system”.
The law will “favour the giants of the hotel sector to the detriment of those who simply want to earn a supplementary income from their property”, said Alexis Jolly, a member of the National Rally.
Airbnb said it was already working with more than 350 towns and cities across France “to enforce local rules”.
“We want to work with municipalities to ensure that new powers are leveraged where there is a clear need and trackable impact,” it added.
Representatives of the hotel industry welcomed the move.
“The new law takes up measures that the tourism industry has been advocating for a long time in order to improve the regulation of furnished holiday accommodation,” the CAT and ADN Tourisme federations said in a statement.
The measures, they added, would guarantee “the diversity and quality of the accommodation on offer, which is so important in terms of attracting tourists to our regions”.
