Controversial anti-homeless fences around benches dismantled

Disputed fences built around benches in a town in southwest France a day before Christmas to prevent homeless people or dealers from using them were “temporarily” dismantled for “safety reasons” Thursday night, the local council announced Friday. 

Fences built around benches to prevent homeless people from using them in Angouleme, a town in southwest France. Creative Commons

The fences “or more specifically gabions” were uninstalled late Thursday night because teenagers succeeded in getting inside one of them at the end of the afternoon, the director of the mayor’s cabinet Antoine Truffaux told AFP.

The local council which aims to turn these unusable benches into a nice landscape by installing stones and pebbles has no intention of changing its mind.

The fences should be reinstalled at a later date “depending on when the pebbles arrive”, Truffaux said.

The installment of these fences a day before Christmas which gave to these benches the appearance of cages had sparked uproar within the town’s community.

Many people had expressed their outrage on social media concerning this measure which they thought was shameful.

Some people however welcomed it as an appropriate response to disrespectful and aggressive begging.

The local council has taken responsibility for this decision to block the use of these nine benches near a shopping centre, which “were almost exclusively used by people who consume alcohol on a regular basis everyday”.

The mayor's office also explained it had acted in reaction to the complaints of the shopkeepers and of the people living in the area, adding that there were about 20 other benches available on the same plaza.

On Friday the council expressed its regret that the fences had been built a day before Christmas, saying it happened because of a lack of coordination between the firm which installed the fences and the one which is supposed to deliver the pebbles.