There's a centuries-long history of people being down and out in Paris, a city with a tradition of transient populations and now more European migrants, said Julien Damon, a sociologist at Sciences Po university. "Paris is seen as an extremely tolerant city and generous in its offer of aid and social protection. It's perhaps the EU city that spends most in terms of public policy on shelter and these issues." He said homelessness was less stigmatised in France. "In London you can't sleep in a tent and stay in the same place all day. In Paris, you can. There's no criminalisation of begging." But if Paris homelessness is perhaps tolerated more than in London and Berlin, that did not mean the problem was being solved by successive governments.
Polls show that French people are sympathetic to the homeless. In European surveys, the French are the nationality most likely to view homelessness as the unfortunate result of financial crisis, unemployment and housing crises and the least likely to blame the individual for personal reasons such as drugs or alcohol. A 2009 poll found that a staggering 56% of French people felt they could one day be homeless themselves, 75% felt "solidarity" with rough sleepers.
The past decade has seen successive protests, such as organised tent cities, in Paris to highlight the plight of the homeless.
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