The town hall published an order on Friday prohibiting begging in nearly thirty streets in the city center this summer. Brigitte Fouré justifies her decision by “recurring complaints from traders”.
The announcement had already caused controversy a month ago, leading to a demonstration of nearly 150 people in front of the town hall. But Brigitte Fouré, mayor of Amiens, persisted and signed… a decree, formalizing her decision. As of May 1, begging will be prohibited in a large part of the city center, Tuesday to Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“Gatherings”, “alcoholism”
In the reasons for the decree, the councilor considers that “begging in the streets of the city center of Amiens, near shops, in a continuous and statistical manner, constitutes an abusive occupation of the public domain likely to cause disturbances to public order by generating crowds sometimes with alcoholism”. She also justifies her decision by “the recurring complaints from traders as well as the multiple interventions by the police to put an end to these disturbances to public order (aggressive begging, alcohol consumption, interference with the free movement of pedestrians, etc.)”.
As an experiment
This decree, announced “on an experimental basis”, runs until August 31 and is valid in around thirty streets. It will allow municipal police officers to “asking people to behave differently or go elsewhere”, indicated the mayor, when she revealed her decision. She believes that verbalization “has little effect on them”.
An Olympic Games effect?
According to our colleagues from the newspaper Libération, the municipality of Amiens fears in particular a massive arrival of homeless people, far from Paris during the Olympic Games. The mayor of Orléans spoke of the same feeling a few weeks ago, even claiming to have seen whole buses of undocumented immigrants arrive in his city. Brigitte Fouré confirmed to Le Monde her fear of “see people who have nothing to do with [sa] city and who would arrive there because they would be chased out of Paris, in particular”while emphasizing that there is no information in this direction at the moment.
Soon an appeal?
Arrests against beggars have been considered legal since 1995, but only under certain conditions. Libération points out that they can only be taken for a given period, detailing the precise locations affected by the decision. In this sense, the decree signed Friday by the mayor of Amiens appears entirely legal. But administrative jurisprudence has shown that such decisions, when appealed, are often annulled, as was the case in recent years in Tours, Bayonne, Saint-Étienne or Angoulême. Soon in Amiens too?
