Mayor Causes Stink on Homeless

First, Paris Metro replaced its platform benches with small plastic seats that homeless people could not stretch out and sleep on. Now a suburban mayor has been forced to backtrack after causing outrage by ordering a spray that makes doorways smell so badly it repels anyone with a sleeping bag.

Argenteuil, a Paris suburb of 100,000, has long tried to deter its homeless population of 15, particularly the four or five who sleep near the emergency exits of a shopping center.

Initially the authorities tried moving them on every hour with a jet of water. Then the mayor, Georges Mothron, from President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling center-right UMP party, ordered the spray.

Council workers, realizing that the spray was a toxic irritant that should not be inhaled, refused to use it. But shopping center staff tried it out on empty doorways.

Yesterday, Mr Mothron said he had suspended use of the spray after protests from rights groups. The housing minister, Christine Boutin, called the spray plan "an unacceptable attack on the dignity of human beings".

Mr Mothron said yesterday he was still looking for ways to move people from doorways. "We have tried to dissuade them gently, then by force, by moving them out every hour with a jet of water," he said. "We aren't doing this for fun. But we must make the site safe and this product was meant to do that."