Paris bans beggars from most popular shopping and tourist hotspots

[alp227]

The glittering Christmas window displays in Paris's luxury stores are often offset by a shivering person begging for coins nearby, huddled behind a cardboard sign saying "hungry".

With the French economy in crisis and the looming spectre of another recession, Paris's poor and homeless people are more present than ever in doorways and metro entrances. Campaigners have demanded action on the country's housing crisis. Instead President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a war on beggars, setting himself against Paris's popular mayor.

Sarkozy's interior minister and long-time right-hand man, Claude Guéant, has issued a series of decrees banning begging around Paris's most popular Christmas shopping and tourist spots. He says arresting and fining beggars is crucial to stop foreign visitors being pestered by begging "delinquents" run by organised mafia gangs.

The Champs Elysées was first on his list with a begging ban from September to January, which has been extended to next summer. Now two more Christmas begging no-go zones have been created: around the famous Galeries Lafayette and Printemps department stores, as well as the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/13/paris-bans-beggars-tourist-hotspots

[reggie the dog]

1. aside from fraud i just do not see this government

staying in power

the socialists will likely win next spring

they are way ahead in the polls

[GodlessBiker]

2. Prohibiting rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, too, I would imagine.

[CaliforniaHiker]

5. When I was in Paris

several years ago I paused in front of a begging woman to read her sign, and an older French lady, a complete stranger, pulled me away and told me to check my pockets.

I seem to remember reading about the French government giving tents to the homeless so that they could have at least some minimal shelter. Does any one know if that is still going on?

[HuckleB]

21. I don't know about the government giving tents to people, but...

Both times that I've been to Paris in the winter, tents could be seen up and down the Seine.

[Boston_Chemist]

7. Anatole France,

The law, in its majestic equality, prohibits the rich and the poor alike.

Lovely quote.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. tons of them around the Eiffel tower. Not begging. Aggressively selling keychains.

[JI7]

9. yeah, iwas going to say, i find people trying to sell crap more annoying

than beggers. can't you just say no or ignore if you don't want to give anything ? is it that much of an issue ?

i have been to india where it's far worse and even that didn't bother me as much as some people. and yeah, the ones trying to sell crap in india were worse than the beggers.

i don't know. maybe it's just the realization that they are so much worse off. that to be bothered by something like them begging (regardless of whether you give anything) just seems kind of off. like losing perspective of the situation.

[pitohui]

12. as a shy person i respect your opinion but i don't agree w. it

at the end of the day i respect the person trying to hustle me, and currently paris is FULL of hustle

i saw no beggars but i saw guys selling the light-up flying eiffel towers, the buskers on the metro, the guys selling fake handbags...in short, i saw guys hustling and selling

yes, as a shy person, i would prefer not to be approached, however, as a human being, i think it is far more respectful of the person's energy and creativity if they sell or hustle rather than beg

the thing about paris that is so weird is that they have a wonderful social safety net, health care, the dole, everything...if someone is hustling (begging) it's for something like drugs that i would not ever spend my own money for, i feel like if you're hitting up a person from louisiana for money and you're a rich, safety netted parisian at least provide me w. the entertainment value of the tacky flying light-up eiffel towers!!!!

[Retrograde]

10. The streets of Paris are paved with gold rings

We were there last month for our anniversary, and the number of scam artists - which I think are the actual targets here - was noticeably greater than on previous visits. The two biggest ones were the ring droppers (a person pretends to find a "gold" ring on the sidewalk, asks if it's yours, then tries to sell it to you) and what we called the Deaf Girls (teenaged women who approach you with a petition to sign on behalf of the deaf and dumb, then hold out signs asking for donations or distracting you while their friends go through your belongings). No matter where you are in the city the approach is always exactly the same - I'd think they'd increase their yields with more variation. Individually they're mainly just nuisances, but en masse they can be hard to get around: the Deaf Girls mob the train stations in particular. I've seen the local police try to stop them, but since they're underage about all they can do is take away their clipboards and write them up, but a new bunch appears an hour later.

Paris, like every big city, does have its homeless, and destitute, but my reading of the original article is that the police are going after the aggressive, organized bands rather than the down and out individuals.

[lucca18]

11. Yes they are!

We were there in September for ten days, and we must have had a dozen people stop us about that gold ring!
There was a destitute family, with a child begging outside of Galeries Lafayette department store, which was very sad.

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. Their was some kind scam being run by women around that famous white church on the hill.

[pitohui]

13. i was there last month also and now i feel like a loser

on my previous visit i was approached by ONE deaf girl, easily discouraged

on this trip, no deaf girls, no gold rings, NADA

it makes me suspect that my wardrobe is deficient -- nobody thinks i'm worth the hustle, which is actually accurate but still i thought i could pass as a person of means, hell, i got to paris in the first place didn't i?

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. The ones at the Eiffel tower work in large groups. When the cops arrive, they run off. If you show

interest in the key rings sold by one, the others gather around as if you'll buy from all of them.

[Boston_Chemist]

6. Isn't Europe little more than a tourist trap nowadays?

This is functionally equivalent to Disney banning beggars from park premises.

[pitohui]

14. europe is a pretty big place

paris is a city of 11 million people but i don't think it is the entirety of europe

it is a beautiful rich city that provides a strong safety net and is a tad pissed off by buskers/beggers from foreign lands who cannot resist its lure and who (understandably) want to add themselves to its population and if they're begging/hustling it makes them look bad even though they are very modern in outlook and offer many benefits to citizens

i see both points of view, i understand those who would like to stay there and are willing to sing sad spanish songs on the metro to afford it, and i understand why the local gov't is pissed off that they're being made to look bad because they can't provide to a world of 7 billion people on a budget for 11 million

but i will say this, if you want to be a busker, there are WAY easier places to go than paris

[Nihil]

16. It is indeed ...

> europe is a pretty big place

... but I doubt some stay-at-home numpty from Boston would appreciate that.




It is however interesting to see the difference in comments received when different countries
do the same thing (think back to the furore over the Hungarian decision to kick out the foreign
beggars a few weeks back) ... especially when the majority of aggressive comments against
the actions come from people whose "homeland" doesn't provide such a safety net.


> i understand why the local gov't is pissed off that they're being made to look bad because
> they can't provide to a world of 7 billion people on a budget for 11 million

FWIW, I totally support the Parisian authorities on this and wish that those in London would
do the same.

[uppityperson]

20. that is like saying USA is a tourist trap because of Disenyland

Europe is a big place, with cities, towns, countryside and many different countries.

[Trillo]

8. "are there no workhouses"?

"are there no prisons"!?

Scrooge, Dickens.

[pitohui]

15. wrong city EOM

;

[Blue_Tires]

17. Place random Jean Valjean quote here: