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RENTING

France to limit rent rises to help households with cost of living

Property rent rises across France are to be capped at 3.5 percent for a year, as part of a raft of government plans to fight the rising cost of living.

Published: 8 July 2022 16:46 CEST
France to limit rent rises to help households with cost of living
(Photo: Gaizka Iroz / AFP)

The rent cap was put before the Council of Ministers by Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire on Thursday as part of the proposed purchasing power bill that will be debated in the National Assembly in the coming days. 

The government is also proposing measures like extending the freeze on gas and electricity bills, a fuel rebate and one-off grants to low income households, all designed to stave off the inflation crisis which is gripping Europe in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Le Maire had previously confirmed the plan to limit rent rises by limiting the Indice de référence des loyers (rent reference index), the scale on which rent increases are calibrated. 

Rent hikes are already strictly controlled in France, but the government’s plan will ensure that landlords can only impose small rises this year, as householders struggle with rising prices for everyday items.

Le Maire says that without the government’s ‘rent shield’, landlords across the country would increase rents for their tenants by “five to six percent”. 

The plan has the backing of France’s national housing body the Conseil national de l’habitat.

Rules on rent charges in France are strict. 

A landlord can only increase rent once a year if the lease agreement provides for it in a review clause. 

The initial rent charge must run for at least 12 months before any increase, and further increases can only occur 12 months later. 

Rent increases may not be backdated – so if, for example, the lease revision date is March 13, 2021, but the landlord does not raise rent charges until July 13, 2021, only rents collected from this date can be increased.

If the lease review date is March 13, 2021, a landlord can increase the lease from that base point until March 12, 2022.

If the agreement does not include a review clause, the rental amount must remain the same for the term of the lease, unless the landlord has made improvements to the property at their own expense.

Even when a landlord can increase the rent on a property, they can only do so with reference to the rent reference index, which sets a ceiling for the annual rent increases that landlords can demand. The rules and the method of calculation are described here.

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FOOD AND DRINK

French restaurant diners divided over tips by card

Restaurants across France are increasingly offering diners the option to include a tip as part of the card payment process, especially since the government introduced a tax exemption on this form of gratuity - however the changes are not universally popular.

Published: 5 June 2024 12:03 CEST
French restaurant diners divided over tips by card

Adding a tip (known as une pourboire) if you’re paying by cash is a fairly simple process – just leave a few coins on the table or tell your server to keep the change.

However as more and more people are paying by card, card payment terminals are being equipped with the facility to prompt the addition of a tip at the point of payment – giving the diner the option to add 2 percent, five percent, 10 percent or no tip before they tap their card or type in their PIN.

Customers in France tend to have less cash in their wallets – in 2021, according to a study by the Institut CSA, 35 percent of French people said they never carried cash. As a result, the habit of leaving a few coins or a  banknote on the table in recognition of a server’s attention is becoming increasingly rare.

Since January 2022, the government has exempted card-paid tips from tax, bringing them into line with cash gratuities, and has recently extended the exemption to the end of this year.

But while the idea of a tip option for card-paying diners may seem logical given the increasingly common use of cards to pay bills, anecdotal evidence suggests that customers and restaurateurs remain to be convinced, with many seeing it as a form of pressure to leave a tip.

READ ALSO How much should you tip in France?

“The waitress put the terminal under my nose and told me I could pay €1, €2, €5 – or another amount. It was a bit unpleasant, you feel obliged. In the end, I refused,” one diner told Le Parisien recently.

“In general, I prefer cash. At least I’m sure that the money I give ends up in the server’s pocket,” another said.

Servers, however, apparently lean in favour of the system. One told the newspaper that her monthly tips had jumped from €100 to €300.

But she admitted that French diners were more likely to complain about the imposition. “It’s easier with foreign tourists, who seem to be used to this system,” she said.

For Franck Chaumes, president of the catering branch of the Union des métiers et des industries de l’hôtellerie (Umih), this reluctance among French customers may be explained by the fact that, “it can give the impression that you’re paying more for your meal than the advertised price”.

In France service is included in the bill, so there is no obligation to tip. People who do wish to leave a little extra as a thank-you for good service usually give just a few euro or round up their bill.

The French word for tip literally means ‘for a drink’ – pour boire – and was originally seen as giving the server the price of a drink for themselves.  

According to Umih figures, most of the 200,000 restaurants and bars in France are still not equipped to take tax-free tip payments. And take-up among customers still looks slow.

Some restaurateurs are resistant, too. Recently, Stéphane Manigold, head of the Éclore group which operates eight Parisian restaurants, sent a memo to employees closing the the door on tipping incentives on card terminals. 

“It’s imperative that the payment experience remains simple, transparent and pressure-free, in line with our service standards”, says the entrepreneur.

If you’re uncomfortable with adding a tip at the card machine you can always just leave no tip, or refuse the tip option on the card reader and leave some coins on the table.

Likewise, in restaurants that don’t have the tip option on the card reader, you can always round up your bill and ask the waiter to put that amount on the card reader – for example if your bill comes to €31.70 you might ask the waiter to put €35 on the card reader.

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