Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin introduced a legal right to housing, responding to growing protests over homelessness.

``It's a principle which puts the right to housing at the same level as the right to health care or education,'' de Villepin said in a press conference in Paris today.

Burgeoning lines of red tents have lined the banks of the Canal Saint Martin in central Paris since December as people answered a call by the charity les Enfants de Don Quichotte to leave their homes for a night to show solidarity with the homeless. Medecins du Monde, a doctors' charity, began supplying grey tents to homeless people a year ago.

President Jacques Chirac ordered the housing right during his New Year's eve address Dec. 31. De Villepin said the cabinet will approve a law Jan. 17 providing an extra 120,000 housing units per year through 2012.

The legislation, which must be voted by parliament before it adjourns ahead of the elections Feb. 22, will take effect from 2008 for street sleepers and 2012 for people in shelters.

Paris has as many as 5,000 people living on the streets, according to a government report published Aug. 9. That's in addition to 26,630 homeless people in shelters in the Paris region. London has 1,500 homeless people on the streets, and Madrid 700, according to Brussels-based European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless.

France's homeless population rose to about 100,000 last year from 86,000 in 2001, Fondation Abbe Pierre, a Paris-based non-profit group, said in its latest report. Shelters can house 91,675 people.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Vandore at evandore@bloomberg.net Gabriele Parussini at gparussini@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 3, 2007 11:01 EST