Citizens, Squatters, and Asocials: The Right to Housing and the Politics of Difference in Post-Liberation France
Journal: The American Historical Review
Year: 2014

THE SQUATTERS OCCUPY!" So the headline of the Monde Ouvrier announced after six families illegally took up residence in a vacant house in 1946. 1 Following World War II, France began reconstruction amidst a crippling housing shortage. During the housing crisis, homeless families sought shelter in partially destroyed buildings, under bridges, or in rapidly growing shantytowns. Many were from metropolitan France; others were colonial subjects from North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some families had mi