The first convictions under a draconian new French law that makes hanging around in the hallway of an apartment block a crime punishable by prison yesterday drew an angry response from social workers and human rights groups.
”This is an utterly absurd law that holds out every prospect of mounting repression for a whole section of French society,” said Michel Tubiana of the Human Rights League.
Two teenagers from the industrial town of Roubaix in northern France were each sentenced to a month in jail on Friday for ”illicit occupation of the communal areas of a collective building”.
At the youths’ trial the prosecutor demanded a suspended sentence and community service, but the magistrate said he wanted ”to set an example”.
The measure came into effect this spring as part of a Law And Order Bill pushed through Parliament by the hard line interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy.
The left wing opposition says the law creates a country ”where poverty and the expression of revolt become crimes” and will only serve to marginalise those most in need of help. – Guardian Unlimited Â