Thursday, February 06, 2014

French tolerance 1 : The traveling people III

I was chased by a dog today while leaving the office parking lot. A dog belongs to the traveling people, who just settled down on the parking lot earlier this week. I was driving, it barked and followed the car, I was afraid to run it over as I couldn't really see it.

See those camping cars at the back of the parking lot? Most of them have decent cars too.

They were a group here for a while but disappeared for around two three months. After they left, the property management decided to block the access road with a huge dumpster. Well, it didn't do the job, as when they got back, they just used whatever way they could to get into where they wanted to park.

This time there are three main groups : one at the parking lot, one on the photo here, and one parked at the far right edge of this photo.

This group brought along their dogs. See the small wood house? One morning the temperature was at freezing 0°C, I was a bit worried for these little dogs. There were two dog houses for two dogs plus one not on leash (the one chasing me).

I watched a documentary one day, it mentioned that the laws require each city to allocate around 3% of their lands to welcome the traveling people. However, some communities didn't respect it, so the traveling people think that they have all the rights to stay where they want as long as the government didn't provide them enough lands. The documentary followed a group of 150 camping cars, the leader's job is to spot a new location for his group every week. He would out searching for lands that could fit his group, discuss with his team how to make entry to public parks accessible (by moving stones or destroying gates that prevent them from entering). To my surprise though, they do pay electricity and water to the Town Hall where they stay. Most of them work (selling stuffs at market, repair jobs...), and women take care of kids and houseworks.

Look like our neighbors are staying, might as well get used to them, and the dogs.


6 comments:

  1. I'm surprised that the parking management didn't think come up with a solution, since it has been going a few times.

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    1. They addressed the problem to the Prefet, and the Prefet did issue an expulsion notice. However, these people continue to stay. I have not yet seen any police coming to solve the problem though.

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  2. I'm not surprised they came up with a half-ass solution that did nothing to solve the problem. We've been trying to get rid of the drug dealers living in front of our residence for years and they're not going anywhere.

    I don't mind if people set up camp and live wild, I just mind when they start to bother the people that normally live there. So destroying property is not cool and letting their dogs run wild is just asking for trouble. What if it's dark and you can't see the dog while you're driving? What if it's day outside and the dog runs out in front of you from behind some bushes? I feel sorry for the dogs.

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    1. Some of my coworkers were also chased by the dog. They almost ran over it.

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  3. I don't know much about travelling people. Are they citizens of any countries? I hope the dogs are better taken care of.

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    1. They are minority French. They are born in France, but in their culture they have nomad lifestyle. We also have problem with the Romans from Romania. Since they are in the European Union, they could move around, so they come to France to beg or work in the black market, then send money back to build houses or to help families live a better life. Some of the teenagers become pickpocket and there are rampant in Paris.

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