A flat owner in the south of France has been on hunger strike for a week in a bid to force non-paying tenants in her apartment to move out.
Danièle Trottini, who owns a three-bedroom flat in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur), states that she is in financial difficulties, and that her tenants have not paid their rent for eight months since she told them she was ending their lease.
Ms Trottini has said she owed €7,000 - but the debt was written off by the Banque de France last week, with the understanding that the tenants would begin paying rent again for the month of March. This did not happen.
Feeling desperate, Ms Trottini has taken the drastic strike action to draw attention to her situation.
“My head is spinning, I feel a bit like someone in a state of hypoglycemia,” she told BFMTV. “I am in such a difficult situation. I have to pay charges on my flat, I pay tax, I have a mortgage.”
She has now gone for eight days without food, but despite some physical challenges, she is prepared to continue the strike. “I'm starting to feel a bit shaky and my legs are wobbly,” she said. “But nothing alarming for the moment.”
‘We can’t be on the street with four kids’
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The tenants - a couple with children - say they cannot move out until they are rehomed in social housing, which, they claim, is not available.
The mother of the family told local newspaper Nice-Matin: “I understand the difficulty [Ms Trottini] is in. But our situation has changed; we have had a fourth child and we have also been dealing with illness. We can’t be on the street with four kids.”
She said that her partner has repeatedly tried to get the council to offer them social housing, but “they say there isn’t any”.
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Yet, Ms Trottini says that her attempts at communication have fallen on deaf ears. “There is no dialogue with the family,” she said. “I’ve already tried; I left it until January, and then said, if you pay, I won’t take any action.”
She now says she regrets leaving it as long, and has said the tenants are simply “dishonest people”.
‘Being asked to cover the gaps in social housing’
Ms Trottini’s lawyer, Nathalie Daon, states that her client seems to be “being asked by the state to cover for the gaps in social housing”, especially after her debt was erased. Ms Trottini agrees, saying that she feels as though her apartment has been “requisitioned by the state to house a family in difficulty”.
She said: “They’ve told me that I can’t do anything, and I have to wait for a procedure [of eviction] that could take two years to get rid of them. I hope these people will be rehomed, because it’s the only way that I’ll get my apartment back.”
She herself has had to rent another apartment in order to have somewhere to live, and is now paying €1,200 in her own rent, as well as €1,000 in mortgage repayments, every month.
Ms Trottini has said she is planning to continue her hunger strike “until I get my keys back”.
The Cannes mairie and Ms Trottini’s doctor have said they are both aware of her situation and hunger strike, and are “closely following” her to “see how we can help”, and mayor David Lisnard has said that he believes the law should be changed to “better protect” owners.
