Funding has yet to be confirmed. The French union of housing organisations estimates the government will have to find ¤2bn (£1.3bn) on top of existing budgets and other contributions.
Jean-Louis Borloo, the French urban affairs minister, announced the programme at the union's annual conference earlier this month, dubbing it a new "battle of France" against social injustice.
He said decentralised decision making involving all stakeholders would be a key theme of the market renewal programme.
In Germany, the federal government is to pour ¤2.4bn (£1.5bn) into renewing cities in the former East Germany.
A competition to find pathfinder projects resulted in the announcement of 34 areas in mid-October; each will each receive ¤1m (£630,000) to develop their strategies. The competition attracted 269 bids in total, including 10 from areas of Berlin.
Though under severe financial pressure itself, the government plans to turn round the failing infrastructure of the cities by 2009.
A spokesman for the competition judges said the areas chosen were suffering depopulation, social exclusion, unemployment and other urban problems all too familiar to the UK housing sector.
Many housing associations are in crisis with too much stock and low incomes, he said.
The government wants housing organisations and local authorities to adopt a market approach similar to that which has just got under way in the UK.
Stuart Lowe, senior lecturer in social policy at York University, said the UK, Germany and France faced similar challenges when it came to turning around failing housing markets.
"Regeneration must tackle fundamental regional economic issues as well as housing," he explained.
"The criterion for success in all three countries will be to bring in different kinds of jobs to replace those lost in de-industrialisation.
"We must either do that, or accept that once-great cities will be smaller in future."
Source
Housing Today
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