ABSTRACT
The nature and scale of French housing estates made estate-level services central to the viability of the HLMs. French private renting developed the renowned ‘concierge’ system, the goal of which was to ensure private enjoyment of peaceful conditions to each tenant, while enforcing communal rules to maintain collective areas on behalf of the landlord. This sometimes oppressive control system was transferred to HLM estates through a system of gardiennage. By far the biggest group of HLM employees was the caretaking service, with 35,000 out of a total of 65,000 employees. This front-line, intensive management, vested with authority akin to estate superintendents in the old-fashioned British housing trusts, like Peabody and Guinness, kept most estates working with a reasonable level of basic services. Without it, they would have almost certainly lapsed into chaos.
