Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the Rassemblement National for the French presidential election, has introduced housing policies that have sparked significant controversy. Among her proposals is the idea of giving priority access to social housing to French citizens, a policy she calls "national preference." This idea has drawn sharp criticism from political opponents and housing advocacy groups. Le Pen also proposed abolishing the SRU law, a piece of legislation from 2000 that requires cities with more than 3,500 residents (or 1,500 in the Paris region) to allocate 20% or 25% of their main residence stock as social housing by 2025. Additionally, she suggested expelling "delinquent families" from social housing and reducing regulations around energy performance diagnostics (DPE), which assess a building’s energy efficiency. The concept of reserving social housing for French citizens has provoked the strongest reactions from Le Pen’s opponents, especially from the left and housing sector organizations. Senator Pierre Ouzoulias of the Communist Party compared the proposal to the policies of Marshal Pétain, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. Prisca Thévenot of Ensemble pour la République questioned why a foreign nurse working legally in France would have fewer rights than a French nurse. Emmanuelle Cosse, head of the Union sociale pour l'habitat (USH), described the proposal as a "xenophobic whim" and argued that it unfairly targets immigrants, noting that foreigners are not favored in accessing social housing and that their access is even lower than that of French households. According to the USH, foreigners account for 15% of social housing tenants. The Confédération nationale du logement (CNL), which represents social housing tenants, stated that the "national preference" policy would not resolve the shortage of social housing and that blaming foreigners for the housing crisis is false. The proposal to abolish the SRU law has also caused outrage among several political figures. Jean-Luc Mélenchon criticized Le Pen’s housing policy as aiming to create "ghettos of the rich." Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, said the measure would benefit cities that do not want to accommodate social housing. Jacques Baudrier, a communist deputy in charge of housing in Paris, called abolishing the SRU law "catastrophic for the right to housing." Former Housing Minister Guillaume Kasbarian (Ensemble pour la République) pointed out an exchange from March 2024 in which an RN deputy, Frédéric Falcon, stated that his party supported the SRU law and did not want to revisit it. However, Falcon has since been appointed as the coordinator of the housing policy for Le Pen's presidential campaign. The current Housing Minister Vincent Jeanbrun's team noted that housing is central to many of France's social issues, and RN deputies will likely support the government's housing bill in the fall to free up construction and simplify projects.