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.
So, cages now to prevent access to benches by homeless, alcoholics and drug dealers. Is this one step better or worse than putting them in cages? Our societies have developed over many years in response to conditions thrust upon them by powerful decision makers. It becomes more and more apparent that now certain sections of that public can be denied even the privilege of being recognised as having the status of humankind.
Deal with the cause, not the symptoms.
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