• Two new fixed tort fines (AFD) will be tested in several agglomerations, including Lille.

  • One of these AFD concerns the illegal installation of land with a view to establishing a dwelling.

  • The penal qualifier, deliberately broad, allows the verbalization of many situations.

Who can do the most can do the least. On September 4, Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, and Eric Dupond-Moretti, Keeper of the Seals, announced the launch of the experimentation of two new fixed tort fines (AFD). The first, highly publicized, sanctions the occupation of building halls. The second allows to verbalize the illegal occupation of land to live there. A deliberately vague title that allows for a very wide cast.

These two AFDs will initially be tested from October 19 on the jurisdictions of the courts of Marseille, Créteil, Reims, Rennes, Foix and Lille.

The exact offense sanctioned by the one we are concerned with is "unlawful installation on the land of others, with a view to establishing a dwelling there, even temporary, on land belonging to a municipality or to any other owner without being able to to justify its authorization ”.

The fine is 500 euros, reduced to 400 or increased to 1,000 depending on the payment deadline.

A fine planned since 2018 but never applied

In fact, this AFD was already provided for by the law of 7 November 2018 on the reception of travelers and the fight against illegal installations. The basic penalties were heavier, 7,500 euros in fine and one year in prison, but the public action could be extinguished if the offender paid his fixed fine. Except that this has never been implemented as recognized by the Minister of Justice before the Senate in December 2020.

This experimentation should be a game-changer. Contacted by

20 Minutes

, the Ministry of Justice confirms that the target audience is far from being limited to travelers: "The hypotheses are very broad since the criminal qualification is the fact of sitting in a meeting on land without authorization ”, we are told. Roma slums and settlements for migrants or homeless people are therefore also concerned. But it can go further. Fans of wild camping or spectators of cycle races who, as we can see at the crossroads of the Tree during the Paris-Roubaix, park their motorhomes several days before the race.

A very wide range of possibilities.

Maybe too much elsewhere.

"We are not against these new measures, the key is to know what additional resources we will be given to apply them," asks Arnaud Boutelier, deputy regional secretary of the Alliance Hauts-de-France police union.

Because between verbalizing a bicycle fan and entering a parking lot occupied by dozens of caravans of Travelers, there is a small nuance.

"There are sensitive situations where we will not be able to disembark with a single crew and there is already a lack of manpower, especially in the Lille sector," admits the police officer.

It is one thing to collect the VP, and quite another to collect the amount.

"But that is no longer our problem," slips the trade unionist.

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  • Justice

  • Travellers

  • Lille

  • Society

  • Police

  • Fine