In France, the stop on rents for class G homes has already removed 1.8 million homes from the market, causing rents to explode. An alarm that now also concerns Italy, where the new rules on energy efficiency risk reducing supply and pushing prices even higher
Our homes are no longer safe. The French know something about this, and for a year they have been dealing with the effects of the law, in line with Europe’s green diktats, which prohibited them from renting out homes in energy class G. The least efficient, the one that triggers environmentalist anathema. The law saw the light in 2021 and, since that day, has undergone a series of changes. In its definitive version, it entered into force in January 2025. It applies to new rental contracts but also to renewals, even tacit, of existing contracts. With the excuse of “résilience”, the magic word that smells like a rip-off at least since it became a buzzing slogan in the Covid era, successive governments under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron have bludgeoned property owners.
Never mind if reality absolves them of the psycho-crime of polluting the Earth. Irish data centers, for example, consume more than all the homes in the country combined. But despite the evidence, the French ecological crusade is destined to affect more and more citizens: from 2028, the rules will extend to energy class F; from 2034, even to class E. In the meantime, the transalpine directive has already produced concrete consequences. And none of them benefit ordinary people.
Removing 1.8 million residences from the market, which will become 4.8 in two years, in a condition of high demand, necessarily means causing an increase in rents. The phenomenon has an even more pronounced impact in metropolises, which are sought after but also have the least updated real estate stock: in Paris, for example, 15 percent of rental homes have been banned by green regulations. To get an idea of the problem, it is sufficient to draw on the data processed by the Global property guide for 2025: in the Ville Lumière, the increase in prices compared to the previous year, found a few months after the activation of the trap, was equal to 3.7 percent. And 25-35 percent of the price increase was attributable to the green cleaver. In Lyon, it reached +5.6 percent, with a contribution of 25-30 percent attributable to environmental legislation. In Marseille, rents rose by 6.7 percent, a jump due to 30-40 percent of the new rules, which explain 25-35 percent of the increases in Toulouse (+7.6), 30-40 percent of those in Bordeaux (+10) and 20-30 percent of the +5.7 in Nantes.
In the capital, at the beginning of 2026, average costs are between 790 euros per month for a studio apartment and 1,200 for a two-room apartment, with growth for the year estimated between 1 and 3 percent, at least according to Investropa projections. Therefore, the translation into French of the transition imposed by Ursula von der Leyen’s first Commission, especially under pressure from her then number two, the Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans, although partly attenuated at the beginning of the German’s second mandate, had an impact primarily on weak users: people looking for a roof in one of the big cities, where many have to move to study or work.
But it is right to also think about the rights of landlords, who have lost a legitimate source of income. And if they don’t have the resources to renovate, despite the various state incentives (VAT reduced at 5.5 percent instead of 20, grants to get out of the “passoire thermique”, interest-free loans of up to 50 thousand euros), the second option is also complicated for them: getting rid of an asset that ideology has transformed into ballast. Selling the fruit of a lifetime’s sacrifices. Already in 2024, as The Connexion had reported, the value of class G properties, anticipating the imminent legislative axe, had fallen by 25 percent compared to that of class D properties.
Now, having explored the French tunnel of horrors, a legitimate question arises: what should Italians expect? Have we received a photograph from our neighbors of what our tomorrow will be? The EU directive has been softened slightly compared to the initial framework. With a few exceptions (such as the ancient buildings of the historic centers), the mania of Timmermans and his companions would have made it necessary for every family in the Bel Paese to shell out an astronomical sum: between 35 thousand and 60 thousand euros for energy adjustments. And with tight deadlines. For residential buildings, according to official guidelines, the obligations are now more nuanced: Brussels is asking member states to adopt measures that allow them to reduce consumption by 16 percent by 2030 and by 20-22 percent by 2035, when it will be necessary to eliminate fossil fuels used for heating. According to the programs, the sun of the future with zero emissions should rise in 2050. On the table of the Minister of the Environment, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, there is however a big problem to solve: 45.3 percent of the buildings in Italy are located in class F or G. To understand the order of magnitude: in France, those impressive numbers that we have shown above (4.8 million buildings under the green sword of Damocles) refer to 14.4 percent of the total housing stock. It takes little to imagine the extent of the drain, given that the share of buildings to be adapted weighs three times on the total buildings.
To date we have been saved from the draconian measures adopted beyond the Alps, but our starting situation is much worse than that of our cousins. Ultimately, this is demonstrated by the results of the Superbonus: 123 billion invested to renovate just over 4 percent of the national residential building stock. In the name of environmental sustainability, that of the public budget has been put at risk. And the progress achieved was limited. With the aggravating circumstance that the aid benefited the wealthy: on average, those who benefited from the incentives had an annual income of 52 thousand euros.
By May 29, Rome will have to present its plan to implement the Union’s requirements. We will try to confirm the tax credits and secure an adequate amount of European funds. But it is difficult to think that, for the owners, the Euroleap forward will be at zero cost. Of course, Macron doesn’t govern here. And not even the Democratic Party. In the meantime, however, as Crif real estate recorded in June 2025, the depreciation of a property in a low energy class has already reached 34 percent. It was the old dream of the Commission, expressed in countless economic recommendations, starting with those on the adaptation of cadastral estimates: to eradicate the houses of the Italians. Europe fails on many things; this one is succeeding.
