The Nice Administrative Court has slowed down the anti-meeticity measures put in place by the mayor Christian Estrosi by canceling a decree taken for the summer of 2022, deemed excessively wide compared to the reality on the ground.
Since the mid -2010 mid -2010s, the municipality has banned begging during the summer season in tourist areas, a policy renewed in June 2022 for the whole summer period. This measure was based on the 758 trials established by the municipal police as part of a similar decree in force the previous summer. Mr. Estrosi regularly justifies these prohibitions by the need to fight against what he describes as “aggressive begging”.
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Seized by the Human Rights League (LDH), administrative justice had urgently suspended this decree from 2022, before definitively canceled it in a decision rendered on Thursday.
Contacted by AFP, the town hall of Nice did not wish to comment on this cancellation, but indicated that a similar decree had been made for the summer of 2023 and that a new text was already planned for the summer of 2025.
In its judgment, the court noted that, out of the hundreds of issues drawn up, only eight mentioned facts of “aggressive begging”, without ever specifying its nature. Most verbalizations were content to point out the presence of homeless or people in precarious situations.
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“This decision confirms us in our fight for the respect of the constitutional principle of fraternity, for dignity and against any form of discrimination and in particular that which is exercised against the victims of an increasingly inhuman society,” the LDH reacted in a press release.
In a city where 21 % of the population lives below the poverty line, the left opposition regularly accuses the municipality of favoring a postcard image to the detriment of the most precarious freedoms.
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This winter, the town hall also asked associations to relocate their help distribution after a petition for residents and traders complaining about the increased presence of homeless on the Garibaldi square, emblematic tourist site.
In September 2024, Christian Estrosi also wrote to the prefect to report disorders linked to the growing presence of “wandering populations”, mainly from Eastern Europe, in public spaces.
(With AFP)
