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ZOHRAN MAMDANI CAN LEARN FROM PARIS HOUSING VICTORIES  
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Ian Brossat, Interviewed by Harrison Stetler
July 7, 2025
Jacobin
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_ As Paris’s deputy mayor, Ian Brossat massively expanded the
French capital’s public housing stock. He spoke to Jacobin about the
left-wing city hall’s record and what lessons it might have for
Zohran Mamdani in New York. _

Ian Brossat at the meeting of the Nouveau Front Populaire in
Montreuil on June 17, 2024, as part of the parliamentary elections
following the dissolution of the national assembly., Photo: Magali
Cohen / Hans Lucas / Agence France-Presse (AFP) // Jacobin

 

Zohran Mamdani won last month’s New York City Democratic primary
promising radical solutions to the city’s cost-of-living crisis. But
the real difficulties still lie ahead, assuming the left-wing hopeful
can clinch city hall come November. As mayor, the
thirty-three-year-old democratic socialist will face stiff opposition
from more conservative Democrats in Albany, to say nothing of the
Trump administration. Meanwhile, the many business interests that are
making the city unlivable for lower- and middle-class New Yorkers will
stop at nothing to resist Mamdani’s agenda.

Ian Brossat is a French senator and municipal councilor in Paris.
Between 2014 and 2023, he served as deputy mayor in charge of housing
policy, overseeing an aggressive expansion of the public housing stock
that has provided an important cushion against the pressures of real
estate speculation otherwise remaking France’s capital. A longtime
member of the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), he is a candidate for
mayor in the municipal elections to be held in March 2026.

Brossat sat down with _Jacobin_’s Harrison Stetler for an extended
conversation on Mamdani’s electoral breakthrough, the upcoming
mayoral elections in France, and the challenge of governing a global
metropolis from the left.

HARRISON STETLER: Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City
Democratic primary has galvanized the American left as it struggles to
respond to Donald Trump’s return to power. What does this victory
represent?

IAN BROSSAT: This is an incredible breath of fresh air. In an
international situation where bad news is multiplying, it’s good to
see that all is not lost. We’re facing an all-out reactionary
offensive in every corner of the globe. Mamdani’s victory in the
Democratic primary is a sign that there are reasons for hope. I’m
convinced that amid the rise of the far right, large metropolises can
be poles of resistance. And I think that’s the hope that many
Americans and New Yorkers have been given in recent weeks.

HARRISON STETLER: Mamdani’s campaign focused on a very clear
message: it’s becoming harder and harder for working- and
middle-class people to live in cities like New York. That sentiment is
not unique to New York and could well be applied to major capitals in
Europe, including Paris. Is the cost-of-living crisis finally bringing
politics in major urban areas to a tipping point?

IAN BROSSAT: I certainly hope so. Confronting issues like purchasing
power and housing was at the center of his platform because our cities
are being hit by a wave of real estate speculation that is reaching
absolutely insane levels. It’s shocking how long housing issues have
been brushed under the rug in our political debates.  Families,
working-class people, and students are spending an ever-increasing
proportion of their income on rent.

The housing issue raises a fundamental question: Who has the right to
live in our cities?

The housing issue raises a fundamental question: Who has the right to
live in our cities? With each passing day, the extension of market
logic like the law of supply and demand is only creating more
exclusion. Those who make our cities vibrant and ensure that public
services and economic activity function often no longer have the
opportunity to live in the places where they work. The market is not
functioning. This requires public intervention to ensure that the
right to housing prevails over the right to property. In any case, we
need to work toward a new balance between the right to housing and the
rights of property.

HARRISON STETLER: To win the primary, Mamdani managed to build a
multiracial, young, and class-spanning coalition — the mirror image
of a city as cosmopolitan as New York. But in wealthy global cities
like New York or Paris, can a radical coalition like this survive in
the long term?

IAN BROSSAT: 

I’m convinced that it can. In Paris, for example, two-thirds of the
city’s legislative districts in the summer 2024 elections were won
by the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP). Why? Because the NFP was the
xxxxxx against the far right. As far as Paris is concerned, our
mayoral elections will take place in 2026 — a year before the
presidential elections in 2027, when it’s not inconceivable that the
country will fall into the hands of the far right. Against that
backdrop, many Parisian voters will be wondering what will become of
our city in the event of a far-right victory on the national level.
Turning Paris into a pole of resistance against the far right requires
radicalism. Half measures won’t suffice.

The far right hates everything our big cities represent. Our large
metropolises are melting pots bringing together people from all walks
of life and from an array of cultures — the exact opposite of what
the far right promotes. As a city, Paris is also extremely committed
to ecology. Again, the exact opposite of the far right’s climate
denialism. As a city, Paris is committed to anti-racism and the fight
against homophobia. Just look at the gigantic Pride march last
Saturday. One question that voters will be asking themselves in 2026
is: How can my city protect me against the dangerous forces that are
gaining strength nationwide?

HARRISON STETLER: Your almost ten years as deputy mayor provide a
revealing example of left-wing governance of a major global city.
What’s your appraisal of Anne Hidalgo’s time as mayor, now that
this era is set to come to an end?

IAN BROSSAT: 

I’m very proud of the work we’ve done, which is not to say that
I’d redo everything identically. In any case, there’s one thing
that can’t be taken away from our team at city hall: we profoundly
transformed Paris, above all on two key fronts.

Investing in public housing has allowed us to maintain a social mix
rarely found in major metropolises — and this despite the fierce
headwinds of real estate speculation and the attractiveness of Paris
for investors.

The first is ecology. Public space has been transformed through the
construction of new green areas and the development of a dense network
of bicycle lanes. Today three times as many people travel by bike than
by car in Paris. We’ve turned squares and streets into parks. This
city is converting to ecology. Nobody forced Parisians to get on
bikes. It’s Parisians themselves who changed their habits and
lifestyle over the last ten years.

The second pillar was social policy and housing, which is Paris’s
largest investment budget. Investing in public housing has allowed us
to maintain a social mix rarely found in major metropolises — and
this despite the fierce headwinds of real estate speculation and the
attractiveness of Paris for investors. transformed Paris with an
extremely clear vision of what she wanted to accomplish.

HARRISON STETLER: Critics would take aim at that — and say that
several long-term trends went fundamentally uninterrupted. Paris is a
considerably more expensive city than it was twenty and even ten years
ago. Its working-class population has continued to shrink. Meanwhile,
gentrification has continued apace, with the professional and upper
classes occupying an ever-larger share of the population. What’s
your response?

IAN BROSSAT: What would Paris be like today if, for example, we
didn’t have 25 percent social housing? If we didn’t double the
proportion of social housing? Over the last twenty years, the social
diversity of the city would have totally disappeared. When you try to
change things in a city, you’re not acting in a vacuum. We’re up
against some extremely powerful players, namely business and real
estate interests who play their role, sometimes in a harmful way.

And in a country as politically centralized as ours, if the central
state doesn’t support a municipality, the battle against these
private interests gets tilted even more in their favor. Against the
real estate behemoths, we need the national government and the city to
work hand in hand to ensure that the public interest prevails. I’m
sorry to say it, but when it came to fighting Airbnb, for example, the
national government has been extremely weak. It was a considerable
handicap for the work we wanted to do.

HARRISON STETLER: There’s a lot that separates New York City’s
government from Paris, but both have to contend with the fact that a
lot of the decisions that impact them are made elsewhere: for New York
City, that mostly means the state government in Albany. For Paris, as
you say, it’s the fact that much of French law and public policy is
national. How else did this affect your ability to enact your agenda,
and how might you navigate this obstacle in the future?

IAN BROSSAT: To take one example, there are some 130,000 secondary
residences in Paris today. That’s a huge share of the housing stock:
almost one home out of ten is a secondary home. Throughout Emmanuel
Macron’s term as president, we’ve been asking for the power to tax
secondary residences in order to discourage real-estate speculation.
The government has never allowed us to do so. We need action from the
national legislature, and the government has always refused in the
name of property rights.

We need to move toward 40 percent public housing by 2035.

If we want to make further progress on housing, we need to tilt the
balance of power in our favor, both vis-à-vis the central government
but also against the private sector. For that, we need to get
Parisians more involved in housing policy. I’m in favor of municipal
referenda on, for example, the idea of requisitioning vacant
buildings, or raising taxes on second homes. We’ll lose if policy is
just driven by a dialogue between city hall and the government. We
need this to be a dialogue between Parisians themselves, the great
mass of whom are tenants, and the government.

HARRISON STETLER: Considering the constraints you’ve faced, it’s
hard to minimize the fact that, at least on social housing, Paris’s
record has been a success. What made this possible?

IAN BROSSAT: You can’t double the proportion of social housing in a
city as dense and expensive as Paris with a snap of the fingers. You
need rules and constraints on developers, but you also need the sinews
of war: money. That’s exactly what Paris has done. Investment
budgets have varied from year to year, but overall today we’re still
investing over €600 million in housing, particularly social housing.
This is a budgetary and political choice.

That being said, today we’ve reached the 25 percent level required
by national law. But it’s clear to everyone that this isn’t
enough. In my view, we need to do two things in the coming years.
First, we need to move toward 40 percent public housing by 2035.
Coupled with that, we need more resolute action than before to
regulate the private housing stock, namely vacant or underoccupied
homes. Here the difficulty again is that it often requires legislative
changes, so we’ll have to find a way to twist the government’s
arm.

HARRISON STETLER: There are exceptions, but Parisians only rarely
take to demonstrations on the question of housing. In cities like
Paris or New York, there have not been protests to compare with the
cost-of-living and housing-rights movements seen in places like Berlin
or Barcelona. Why?

IAN BROSSAT: 

It’s an obstacle. We have seen some actions but on a very sporadic
basis. Some of my favorite moments as deputy mayor were spent in
demonstrations alongside average Parisians. For example, when there
building occupations organized by groups like Droit au Logement (DAL,
Right to Housing). I always saw it as a blessing because it put us in
a stronger negotiating position with the property owners in our effort
to turn the property in question into social housing.

Building occupations, or people protesting on the streets, give us
more leverage against property owners. Everyday citizens are
scandalized to learn that an entire building is empty while people are
sleeping outside just a few meters away. These mobilizations resonate
strongly with the broader public. Unfortunately, it still happens too
rarely.

The far-right offensive is so powerful that lukewarm solutions won’t
work anymore.

HARRISON STETLER: This spring you launched your campaign for Paris
mayor, and it’s not hard to hear a number of parallels with
Mamdani’s campaign. You’re running on “ten proposals” for
Paris, including things like free public transportation for
under-twenty-fives and a new boost to public housing. I know you
defend Hidalgo’s record as mayor, but this still sounds like a
break.

IAN BROSSAT: 

The far-right offensive is so powerful that lukewarm solutions won’t
work anymore. I’m not saying that what we’ve been doing for the
last decade was lukewarm. On the contrary — we transformed Paris.
But we can’t slow down in the years to come. Rather, we need to go
even further and harder. Just look at the temperatures outside: it’s
100 degrees, and we’re only in June! Any talk of reining in our
green agenda is completely mad. Reducing the number of cars in Paris
and greening the city is not a question of comfort; it’s a matter of
survival. If we do nothing, our city will simply become unlivable. The
coming years should be about accelerating the transformation of Paris.
And that, of course, will mean lifting a certain number of taboos.

First of all, as far as the role of cars is concerned, we need to
double down. For example, I’m proposing that along the entire right
bank of the Seine — from the Garigliano Bridge in the 16th
Arrondissement in the west to the Bercy Park in the east — we need
to pedestrianize everything. Let’s get rid of cars and plant trees
on the streets.

We also need to break a few taboos when it comes to the question of
property rights. We need to rebalance the scales between the right to
housing and the right to property. When homes are left empty for
years, when buildings are left empty for years, it’s no longer
private property. It’s ownership that aims to deprive. It deprives
tens of thousands of people of the housing they need.

HARRISON STETLER: The Left, namely the Parti Socialiste, has
controlled Paris city hall for nearly twenty-five years. But the Right
seems intent on reclaiming power with another run by Rachida Dati —
minister of culture and president of the wealthy 7th Arrondissement.
It’s possible that Emmanuel Macron’s followers will line up behind
her candidacy as well. What’s the risk that the city falls into the
hands of the Right?

IAN BROSSAT: 

Frankly, a city is never definitively won over to one side. Just look
at a town in the Paris suburbs like Aubervilliers, which fell to the
Right in the last municipal elections. So I don’t want to be overly
optimistic. We must always remain vigilant. As a city, Paris remains
very heavily divided between east and west, where the Right remains
very powerful. What’s more, the voting system for municipal
elections could soon change at the behest of Madame Dati, who wants to
take over the city [France’s parliament is currently considering a
reform to the mayoral election system in the country’s three largest
cities]. As a matter of principle, changing the voting system within a
year of an election is a big red flag. But all the rules of political
fair play are eroding.

The risk of a shift to the right does exist. Defending against this
threat will require two things of us. One, we need left-wing unity
from the first round of voting. Second, we need a sufficiently radical
program to mobilize the left-wing electorate.

HARRISON STETLER: For now, however, the left-wing parties are going
around selecting and preparing their own candidates. . . .

IAN BROSSAT: 

It’s out of step with what’s at stake. In 2026, we’ll be one
year out from the presidential elections, when there’s a very
concrete risk of a far-right victory. Why toy with weakening the
rampart that is left-wing control of Paris? It’s madness. We won’t
succeed in 2027 if the Left fails in these municipal elections. If
Paris falls to the Right next year, the national-level symbolism would
be disastrous.

At the very least, I’m advocating for a unity campaign starting in
the first round of voting between the parties who have run this city
since 2001 — the Parti Socialiste, the Parti Communiste, and the
Greens. We’ll see with France Insoumise. Hopefully there’ll at
least be unity in the runoff ballot. In any case, the forces that have
worked together to remake this city should run united.

_[IAN BROSSAT is a member of the French Senate for the Parti
Communiste Français._

_HARRISON STETLER is a freelance journalist and teacher based in
Paris.]_

_Our summer issue examines the role of speculation in contemporary
capitalism. Click here to subscribe at a discount.
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* Zohran Mamdani
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* New York City
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* Paris
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* Housing
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* public housing
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* French Communist Party
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* Electoral Politics
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* left political strategy
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* coalition politics
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* left coalition politics
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* Right-wing agenda
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* Ian Brossat
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* municipal socialism
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