Skip to content
View Featured Image

France: Council Removes Anti-Homeless Cages After Outcry

Above: Benches with wire fences around (down) next to the “Galerie du Champ-de-mars” shopping mall in Angouleme.  Photo: AFP/Getty

The local council in the French city of Angouleme has backtracked on a decision to cage public benches to stop homeless people using them.

The fences were put up on Christmas Eve sparking outrage that the move could be so lacking in Yuletide spirit

While many shopkeepers had welcomed the cages, saying homeless people brought down the number of customers, locals had responded in solidarity.

Two teenagers climbed inside the cages and refused to move out. One said: “we were quite outraged , like everybody, I think. And so we said to ourselves: we absolutely have to do something”

The cages have been temporarily removed but the mayor of the right leaning UMP council, Xavier Bonnefont, said no final decision had yet been made.

“We will continue to reflect on this in January with the shopkeepers and the residents of Champs de Mars square, in order to find a satisfactory solution,” he declared.

On social media, the mayor defended the cages saying they hadn’t been aimed just at homeless people but at alcoholics and drug dealers who used the area.

He also said the cages would eventually have been filled with local rocks to form a kind of landscape art installation.

See video: http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/26/france-angouleme-council-takes-down-anti-homeless-cages-around-benches-after-/

null

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.