Outcry over billboard plans

PLANS to allow small towns to install giant advertising panels have caused outcry, not just from countryside campaigners but from the co-author of the bill containing them - Environment Minister Ségolène Royal.

The clause is contained in part of a new set of laws aimed at improving the economy.

As well as allowing for huge adverts on the side of 53 football stadiums as part of Euro 2016, it also liberalises the law for advertising in small communes.

More than 1,500 communes with less than 10,000 residents would be allowed to install 4m x 3m panels at roads into the town - less than a year since the practice was banned.

See also:Ugly billboards must be removed

The idea is currently open to public consultation and has so far received 44,000 responses.

You can give your opinion here.

Ms Royal has already said she would not agree to such a plan - despite being one of the co-signatories of the bill as it passes through parliament.

She described the plan as “a slip up” and said “as long as the decree is not signed, it will not be applicable, and I’m going to change it”.

Ms Royal said that small communes, whose budgets were already stretched, would be unable to resist the pressure from big advertising companies.

One of the leaders of protest group Agir pour les paysages, Michel Blain, said: “One gets the impression this draft was written under the dictation of advertising professionals.”

“The entrances to towns, already not too pretty, will be made uglier but the uncontrolled profusion of advertising.”

The head of the SNPE advertising federation, Vincent Piot - former head of Clear Channel France - said the picture was not as bad as was being made out and that town halls still had the option of refusing the panels if they wished.

More than 600,000 publicity panels became illegal in July after the new law banning them came into force.

Photo:Pierre-Alain Dorange