Where are the (horrible) anti-homeless devices in France?

The mayor of Strasbourg, Jeanne Barseghian, has just this week to repeal an anti-begging decree taken by her predecessor.

When hiding poverty becomes political … Last Thursday, Jeanne Barseghian, mayor of Strasbourg, said stop to a decree against aggressive begging, because the text "violated the dignity of people", wrote the town hall in a press release .

"In a city where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, it is poverty that must be fought, not the poor," said Jeanne Barseghian.

The politician wishes to strengthen "the means of the mobile street team" and to combine prevention, social, medical and psychological support, treatment of addictions, search for housing and social integration. “Particular attention will be paid to furniture and urban fittings in order to make them welcoming to all,” she adds.

It was in April 2019 that the decree was put into operation as an experiment and it had deeply divided the previous municipal majority.

It prohibited, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., the prolonged occupation of public roads, whether or not accompanied by solicitation of passers-by, when it was likely to hinder free movement or to undermine public tranquility, reports the France-Presse agency.

Street furniture against begging

At the beginning of the year, and more precisely in March, the Abbé Pierre Foundation handed in its “golden peaks”, second edition, rewarding the worst anti-homeless devices in city centers. Nearly 24 of these devices were named in six categories: from "the most uninhibited" to "the most deceitful".

The devices can be "public or private urban furniture (grids, picks, rocks, poles, etc.), administrative measures (anti-begging, anti-bivouac, anti-gleaning orders) preventing, intentionally or not, homeless people from sit or lie in the street, ”says the Foundation's statement.

The latter recalls that "homeless people, like all human beings, have fundamental rights". Everything is brought together in the Declaration of the Rights of Homeless People.

Some cities have therefore been pinned in the ranking, such as: Dijon, Toulon, Lille, Nice and Paris.

In Lyon, for example, rails installed on a bench in rue Crillon won the prize for "the most uninhibited device". Another process that had shocked, metal grids installed on the edges of storefronts in Paris or Marseille to prevent homeless people from sitting down or lying down.

On "Soyonshumains", a collaborative and citizen site launched in 2017, and with the hashtag #soyonshumains on Twitter, Internet users can post a photo of anti-homeless street furniture that they spot.

Last May, the Abbé Pierre Foundation, in association with the League of Human Rights, appealed to their local branches to make "an inventory of municipal decrees existing in France and which, in general, aim to prohibit the use of the public domain by people in precarious situations ".

This initiative follows the appeal filed by the two associations against a decision by the city of Saint-Brieuc which they deem "anti-homeless", "anti-begging" or "anti-precarious". The decree signed on May 14, 2019 by Marie-Claire Diouron, regulates the consumption of alcohol on public roads and "gatherings".

Relayed by the newspaper Ouest France, article 4 of this decree prohibits "all abusive and prolonged occupations of the said streets and other dependencies, accompanied or not by solicitations or quests with regard to passers-by, when they are likely to hinder the free movement of persons or of such a nature as to undermine public tranquility or good public order ". As well as "the sitting or lying down when it constitutes an obstacle to pedestrian circulation and access to buildings bordering public roads" and "the grouping of dogs, including on a leash and accompanied by their master".

The lawyers of the two organizations thus worked on an appeal as already seen in Nice, Périgueux, Besançon, where they succeeded in making their voice heard.

In the country, the homeless remain still and always the ghosts of a society that some try to erase completely. Fortunately, the associative world struggles day after day to counter this dehumanized policy.

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Video by Clara Poudevigne