ABSTRACT
In the Communist-dominated Federation of Labor Unions (CGT) budget, rent is reckoned as equal in cost to transport to and from work. For a large family of six it costs as much as eleven packets of cigarettes (cigarettes, now unrationed in France, cost 15 cents a packet). In 1929, with retail prices more than six times what they had been in 1914, rents had not even doubled; real rents were less than a third of what they had been before the First World War. Then came the Second World War. The return to liberty which had been devised for 1943 was shelved, and all rents were frozen, including this time those of recent buildings which had till then escaped. Since the Liberation, an order in council of 1945 and two laws in 1947 have intervened, bringing up to 119 the number of laws or quasi-laws on the subject since 1918. The laws have provided for increases jacking up rents.
