Does a municipality have the right to prohibit certain people from occupying public space? This is the question to which the administrative court will have to answer, which examines Tuesday August 1 the legality of a decree taken by the town hall of Angoulême and attacked by several associations, including the League of Human Rights (LDH) .
In force since July 12, this decree prohibits “any abusive and prolonged occupation” of 22 streets and squares around the Champ-de-Mars, accompanied or not by begging, “when it is likely to undermine public tranquility and good public order”. The ban is scheduled every day for a year between 10 a.m. and 2 a.m. in summer and between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. in winter. Is considered abusive “the occupation of public roads and spaces by individuals grouped together in an immobile or not very mobile manner”generating nuisances (noise, dirt, damage threats ». The “ seated or lying down » even “the standing position”, when it obstructs the passage, is also prohibited, specifies the decree. A fine of 35 € is foreseen for any offender.
Already precedents in Angoulême
The decree, which refers to “many complaints from residents and traders”specifically targets “groups of individuals (…) accompanied or not by animals, who exhibit disruptive, provocative or obstructive behavior”, according to the decree, which specifies that “these groups appropriate (…) the sidewalks and the benches”, emit “noises and vociferations », and leave waste and urine on the public highway.
Clearly, explained, on France Blue La RochelleJean-Philippe Pousset, the security assistant of the mayor Horizons of Angoulême Xavier Bonnefont, this ban “ targets the marginalized in four sectors of the city, they are 200 in Angoulême and cause numerous infractions: they drink while there is an anti-alcohol order, they are often with dogs, and violent”.
The municipality is not at its first attempt. In December 2014, Xavier Bonnefont had screened public benches, before removing them in the face of the outcry. And, in 2020, the mayor had published a decree « antiregroupement », dismissed by the prefecture.
This new act of municipal police, criticized by the left opposition, will it be more durable? The League of Human Rights, which is asking for its cancellation, does not believe it. “There are several difficulties in this text, estimates Marion Ogier, the lawyer of the LDH. First, the notion of nuisance opens the way to arbitrariness, we do not know what is authorized or not. For example, is any prolonged presence considered a nuisance? » Moreover, “a municipal police measure can only be taken if there have already been disturbances upstream”. Above all, she argues, “it must be proportionate in space and time. But there, not only more than 20 streets and squares are concerned, but above all the ban lasts one year, which is extremely broad. »
What the law says
Many municipalities publish texts restricting presence on public roads. However, since 1994, begging or vagrancy are no longer offences, unless money is aggressively demanded. And a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights dated 2021, concerning Switzerland, has confirmed the impossibility of prohibiting begging. Suddenly, the mayors who want to restrict the presence of marginalized people on their territory now instead enact decrees regulating “ abusive and prolonged occupation of streets or the consumption of alcohol.
But, here again, justice cancels a large number of them. In law, a mayor can only regulate this type of occupation of the public highway if it causes disturbances to public order, by obstructing traffic for example, or disturbances to security, or even to the salubrity, due to the litter thrown away. Even in this case, the legality of the decree is not assured. “In 2003, concerning the municipality of Prades, the Council of State specified that this type of decree could be accepted, continues Marion Ogier, but only if it is proportionate to the reality of the risk of the disorder, and limited in time and space. Which does not seem to me to be the case in Angoulême. »
#Angoulême #antimarginal #order #court
