Monday, September 26, 2005

Paris dog poop...


I am sure you heard that walking down the streets of Paris was a real nightmare because of the gifts left by our dog friends... According to local stats - who on earth counted?! - there are about 200 000 dogs in Paris and they produce 16 tons of poop daily!
But the situation has improved a lot. Quite surprisingly dog owners tend to be more disciplined - thanks to signs like this one (it says: "I like my neighbourhood, I pick up my dog poop") and they are also afraid of paying the 183 euro ticket, so that walking down the street is not as bad as it used to be.

10 comments:

  1. 183 Euros?!!! That's a lot of money!!! And another cool picture :-)

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  2. And if you look at carefully the sign on the photo, you can see that the fine can go up to 457 Euros (almost 500 dollars).
    Costly pets...

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  3. I think they better should generalize that rule to every kind of waste throwed on the ground... Public dustbins aren't made for dogs.

    Je pense qu'on devrait appliquer cette règle à chaque déchêt jeté par terre. Les poubelles publics ne sont pas faites pour les chiens.

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  4. I wrote an entry in my blog last July, which basically said that if dog poop was gold, then my hometown (in northern France) had to be Eldorado. In contrast, I had stayed in Clichy where I was doing some research work, and that suburb of Paris had a strict rule about picking up after your dog, with a steep fine for those who did not abide by the rule. The streets of Clichy were definitely much more poop-free than those of my hometown, where, as far as I know, there is still no fine attached to not cleaning up behind Fido (or Toutou.)

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  5. La semaine dernière, je crois, un des quartiers du XIXe ou du XXe arrondissement a été totalement, nettoyé, briqué, astiqué ! L'idée est qu'il devient beaucoup plus gênant de salir ce qui est vraiment propre. Bien sûr, il va sans dire qu'après çà, la brigade des distributeurs d'amendes a été sérieusement renforcée… A priori l'opération "coup de poing" devrait être réitérée dans d'autres quartiers de Paris. A suivre.

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  6. 200 000 dogs in Paris...
    Thats why!

    I heard that french ppl have the highest purcentage in the world of domestic animals.
    Any infos about that?

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  7. > Stephane. LOL

    > Tomate. Yes it's very expensive!

    > Isido. Quel observateur...

    > Meduz I DO agree with you

    > Elisabeth. What kind of research can one do in Clichy?!

    > GG. On pourrait en faire un film : Razzia sur la poop... (ouais bon d'accord...)

    > Eric. I read that too, somewhere but I have no proof

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  8. Eric - I do work on early "serious" rock & roll criticism in France, and the offices of the magazine Rock & Folk. the first serious rock and roll magazine to be published in France, are located in Clichy. It's the only place where I can have access to their complete archives.

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  9. > Elisabeth : working on rock & roll criticism, that's a job ? Tell me how to do it, I'm ready !
    But, what do you mean by early "serious " r&r criticism ?
    > Eric, ben ouais, j'ai nettoyé mes lunettes... Quant à "razzia sur la poop", franchement !!!!

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  10. Isido - I am a college professor who teaches French in the U.S. Early "serious" French rock & roll criticism is my research interest. I have not published anything on that topic yet, but I have already presented three papers on it at the Popular Culture Conference.

    By "serious" rock criticism, I mean something that was very different from "bubble-gum" magazines such as Salut les Copains, magazines that started to look at rock & roll as a cultural and sociological phenomenon with political implications, and that began to develop its own vocabulary and rhythm to discuss the music itself, and also addressed its lyrics (O.K., as long as they went beyond "it's only rock & roll, and I like it.")

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