French minister's advice to homeless people: stay indoors during the cold weather Fr

**Doktor** · 10 Feb 12,, 13:00

A French health minister tried to tweet her way out of embarrassing blog advice that homeless people should not go outdoors during the ice-cold snap in Europe.

Junior minister Nora Berra was ridiculed on the internet for writing a blog at the weekend saying toddlers, old people, the sick and homeless were particularly vulnerable in times of extreme cold and should “avoid going outdoors”.

Her note sparked a flurry of Twitter messages and media reports that she was suggesting the homeless not leave home.

Berra sought to limit the damage via a tweet that redirected readers to a refreshed blog note where the reference to homeless people no longer existed. “There are some subjects that lend themselves badly to irony,” she tweeted on Tuesday.

Hundreds of people, many of them homeless, have been killed in recent days as bitterly cold weather sweeps Europe, with temperatures dropping to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) in parts of France.

Many French cities are opening extra night-time shelter for homeless people.

French minister's advice to homeless people: stay indoors during the cold weather - Telegraph

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And I thought we have the funniest politicians.

Is there any sane person in French government?

**mustavaris** · 10 Feb 12,, 13:02

It´s France. Why should they have sane politicians?

**bigross86** · 10 Feb 12,, 13:12

They're politicians, why should be sane, French or otherwise?

**omon** · 10 Feb 12,, 13:20

wow, genius, Nobel price material.

**snapper** · 10 Feb 12,, 13:49

"Is there any sane person in French government?" You realy want an answer?

S2 · 10 Feb 12,, 15:11

Let them eat cake...!

**Doktor** · 10 Feb 12,, 15:30

Originally Posted by S2

Let them eat cake...!

Thought exactly the same when I read the article.

**kato** · 10 Feb 12,, 15:47

Actually, it's not that invalid a request from a Western European perspective.

The city i live in has 120 homeless and 70-90 transients. All transients and one third of the homeless spend the winter sleeping in public shelters, another third of the homeless occupy cabins and shacks out in the forests etc during the winter that they can heat, and the last third of homeless voluntarily stays on the street despite enough shelter being available to house them.

There are actually places in Germany where homeless are forced into shelters. In Konstanz on the border to Switzerland for example, the city has issued an order for the police to bring any person found sleeping outside either into protective arrest (read: a cell) or a hospital.

The latter is something that should be viewed rather critically. It's your own decision whether you want to freeze to death after all. At least in Western Europe. We're not somewhere in one of those developing countries where people have to rely on charity...

**tbm3fan** · 10 Feb 12,, 20:14

Originally Posted by kato

Actually, it's not that invalid a request from a Western European perspective.

The city i live in has 120 homeless and 70-90 transients. All transients and one third of the homeless spend the winter sleeping in public shelters, another third of the homeless occupy cabins and shacks out in the forests etc during the winter that they can heat, and the last third of homeless voluntarily stays on the street despite enough shelter being available to house them.

There are actually places in Germany where homeless are forced into shelters. In Konstanz on the border to Switzerland for example, the city has issued an order for the police to bring any person found sleeping outside either into protective arrest (read: a cell) or a hospital.

The latter is something that should be viewed rather critically. It's your own decision whether you want to freeze to death after all. At least in Western Europe. We're not somewhere in one of those developing countries where people have to rely on charity...

I agree with you. In fact if in her first release, had she said only toddlers, old and sick people stay out of the bitter cold that would be considered sound medical advice. Yet everyone focused on the word homeless it seems. Knowing this is Europe I would have assumed that there were more than enough provisions for taking care of the homeless as compared to the U.S. Also, knowing many homeless prefer to live life by their rules and no one else's then this would also be good advice for them too. Over in the Bay Area every once in awhile there is a cold spell and when reporters ask homeless why they are not in a shelter many said "they have too many rules." These would be the hardcore homeless who are every where and not women with children

**kato** · 12 Feb 12,, 01:50

Originally Posted by tbm3fan

when reporters ask homeless why they are not in a shelter many said "they have too many rules."

The usual reason here is that most shelters do not allow them to bring their dogs. And some shelters - mostly those run by church charities interestingly - have a bad reputation for people stealing other occupants' stuff.