Stopping someone feeding stray cats
We keep a boat in our local port. A woman regularly feeds stray cats on her barge and they do their toilet on the other boats. It is disgusting to clean. The capitainerie and mairie have not helped. Is there any law to cover this? M.S.
There are rules against feeding stray cats in the règlement sanitaire départemental (health and safety regulations for the department). These may have some variations around France, but usually there is a rule at article 120 (try an internet search for the one for your department of France). Its standard wording states that one may not put out food in public places to attract stray or wild animals, notably cats or pigeons, and the same applies to private roads, courtyards or buildings if it risks causing inconvenience to neighbours.
It adds that “all measures should be taken if the proliferation of these animals is likely to cause a nuisance or a risk of transmitting disease to people.”
It is the mairie’s job to enforce compliance with the regulations and France’s top administrative court the Conseil d’Etat has ruled it may be deemed a serious fault for a mairie not to do so (tinyurl.com/mairie-must-respect).
It could possibly be argued that feeding stray animals on a boat is not specifically mentioned in the wording of the regulation but inconvenience to neighbours seems to be involved and perhaps even risks of disease (eg. bartonella and toxoplasmosis are sometimes linked to stray cats).
A 2002 decree (https://goo.gl/etvLaC) and articles L211-22 to L211-27 of the Code Rural also require mairies generally to take measures against a proliferation of stray cats.
So, we would suggest taking it up with the mairie again, perhaps by sending a recorded delivery letter with reception slip to formalise the process.
If you are ignored you could consider a complaint to the défenseur des droits (https://defenseurdesdroits.fr/).
