Very active and efficient environmental group..........

[Paysages de France]

The French acedemician Michel Serres, Philippe Val the editorialist of

Charlie Hebdo the French satirical weekly and the scientist Albert

Jacquard are all well known names in France. On most subjects, they’ll

argue with each other for hours, but there is one thing all three agree

on and are boiling mad about: the visual pollution caused by the

hundreds of publicity hoardings and gaudy signs that have been allowed

to colonise town entrances.

Michel Serres famously suggested a few

years back, that the people responsible for this public space annexing

should be strung up on their own hoardings by an enraged population.

Philip Val wrote a book ‘Allez -y- vous n’en reviendrez pas!’

« Ah ! Oui, qu'elle serait belle, la France, si elle n'était atteinte

d'une maladie, un mildiou, une lèpre, une teigne, une vérole, une

horrible furonculose, une peste qui la dévore : les panneaux

publicitaires. » (

«Ah! Yes, France would be beautiful, if she hadn’t this illness, this

mould, this leprosy, this smallpox, this veruka, a plague that’s

devouring it - the publicity hoardings!» ) Albert Jacquard

points out that the approach roads to all the historical French towns

have now been squatted by these ugly ‘commercial sentinels’.

A

large majority of the French population share these feelings, but the

advertising industry is all powerful and such large sums of money are

involved that the government has never dared tackle the problem. A law,

drawn up in 1979, sets a few rules down but it is seldom enforced.

Hence the importance of the national association Paysages de France

which takes on the publicity barons and forces the state to act to

remove illegally installed signs and hoardings by using the

administrative courts (around one third of all publicity devices are illegally installed).

Recent victories achieved by Paysages de France include the

dismantlement of three giant totems, several large hoardings and a 15

mètre high Leclerc sign in Montauban (where there is a very active local group)

and another 30 mètre high Leclerc sign near Montpellier. Over 5000

signs and hoardings have been removed by Paysages de France over the

past ten years.

Other groups, such as the ‘Déboulonneurs’ , set on

a confrontation with the advertisers, have sprung up in the past two

years after a national appeal was launched in 2005. Members of local

collectifs have been defacing posters and getting themselves arrested

and taken to court to find a platform to air their antipublicity

viewpoint. The Metro in Paris is frequently under attack.

PS. Full page article and BD in the May issue of  'La Décroissance ' on

the englishman who's causing headaches for 'les afficheurs' in  the

Montauban (SW France) region.

This post had been edited by the forum moderating team in accordance with the Code of Conduct:

Please do not advertise your products or services on the message boards. Any advertising without permission will be removed.

[Paysages de France]

Paysages de France is a registered  association in full accordance with the articles L.141-1 and following of the Environmental code .

It is the only French national association to defend  and protect landscapes urban or non urban.

It doesn't offer any 'products'  and it doesn't provide any 'services' apart from free legal  help and advice to its members.

[Russethouse]

Paysages de France : The rules of this forum state that you must not advertise and each time you post a message for inclusion here underneath it says 'Please note that any unsolicited advertising will be removed'. Many of your posts are designed to encourage members to join Paysages de France. That IS advertising.

I understand you feel that you should be exempt because your organization is not for profit therefore I am going to make two suggestions.

1) You contact Forum admin and ask for an exception to be made and state your case. Details here :http://www.livingfrance.com/lvfra/content/contactUs.asp

2) As a temporary measure only, you alter your profile  (click on your name at the top of the page) to add a sig with a link to the organization and a note to say you are registered as a not for profit and what convention it is under, but that is all. ie: www.paysagesdefrance.fr Registered under ###### No#######.

 

 THAT IS ALL. other posters here are allowed links and NO text, so apart from the registration details anything else WILL be deleted.