France: Angouleme council takes down anti-homeless cages around benches after outcry

France: Angouleme council takes down anti-homeless cages around benches after outcry
By Euronews
Share this articleComments
Share this articleClose Button

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

ADVERTISEMENT

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

Share this articleComments

You might also like

Rain floods southern France for third time in six months

More than 8 tonnes of cocaine seized in Caribbean

Inside Marseille’s deadly drug wars: Why are youths killing youths?