difficult neighbour

[Patf]

Friends have been having an upsetting time with their French neighbour ever since they moved in about 18 months ago. He's a single man living alone in a big house with a huge garden and my friends have a small corner adjoining. Most of the trouble was verbal abuse, but he has pulled up their fence and recently attacked my friend ( male) with a brush and thrown concrete blocks onto their patio. He also brought the Gendarmes in to complain about their 2 dogs. Assuming my friends are not at fault, can they take any legal action against this man,who is considered as deranged by the locals ? They are considering trying to sell up and move elsewhere. Pat.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

They could ask both their gendarmes and their maire for advice. I too would be interested to hear of anyone who has usefully taken legal action under such circumstances; my understanding (based on what gendarmes have told me) is that it would take years, lead to nothing and being civil would complicate and slow down the action which would be taken should he commit a serious criminal offence against them.

[Val_2]

This is about as bad as it gets when moving to another country I guess. When we were trying to get rid of a troublesome employee, our accountants advised us to keep a daily diary with everything we could put down as evidence so if the worst came about we would have plenty of proof of what had been going on. Tell your friends to take photos and date them and keep this diary so that it can be presented to the local mairie and the gendarmerie if this nut keeps on - as always in France; proof,proof and more proof before anything will be taken seriously.

[David584]

Is there such a thing as a French equivalent of Section 136 of the Mental Health Act that we have here in the UK?

The reason that I ask is this. Here in the UK, if a person - in the considered opinion of a Police Officer - is found in a PUBLIC PLACE* in such a deranged condition that he/she is considered to be a danger to themselves or others, then a Police Officer has a power of arrest under Section 136 and can convey that person to a place of safety for relevant assessment.

PUBLIC PLACE* in this instant in the UK means that once a person has set foot outside their front gate and on to the public highway.

Any legal beagles out there that can answer this one???

David