A Total Victory for Children of Don Quixote

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2537450,00.html



Chirac surrenders to actor after tent protests win homes for the homeless
Charles Bremner in Paris

Campaign makes housing legal right
Protest moves on to other countries


A struggling actor has forced President Chirac’s Government to enact radical measures to house the homeless, achieving in a three-week campaign what established charities had failed to do in years.

With total victory in France, the campaign is moving on to other European countries.

Augustin Legrand, 31, set up a website and issued tents to 300 homeless people, forming an encampment in a fashionable suburb of Paris and inviting residents to join them for a night. His protest tactics quickly spread around other French cities, putting huge pressure on Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister.

With a presidential election in April, Mr de Villepin promised to enact immediately a law making housing an enforceable right. Yesterday the Government announced an emergency programme to open 27,000 new places in shelters for those most in need.

The measures were demanded by the Children of Don Quixote, as Mr Legrand’s campaign is called, and last night he ordered the tents to be struck after his demands had been met by the Government and favourably received by the main candidates, Ségolène Royal, of the Socialists, and Nicolas Sarkozy, of the centre-right UMP party.


more.....

Well done!

:toast:

lol

Beautiful.

this is a great thing--when is he coming to the US?

by cops in riot gear. x(

I guess the recent history of riots have made the politicians in France a bit wary about using that option.

on public property? In DC, the homeless sleep in parks, but no one seems to give a shit about them except on Sundays when people drive up and open their trunks and pass out food and clothing.

Good people.

and commits full time to assisting the poor. What a guy!

K&R