May 12, 2026
By Marion Sandner
In its decision on 5 March 2026, in European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) and International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) v France, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) effectively put its foot down for the rights of beggars, homeless people and others living in poverty in the face of the proliferation of municipal decrees in France criminalising begging and other behaviours typically adopted by people living in poverty. This is not the first time that the criminalisation of poverty- or homelessness-related conduct is brought before an international adjudicatory body. Yet, it may be the first time that a European monitoring body boldly asserts that anti-begging decrees violate the right to protection against poverty. This blog post details how the current decision both sets an example from a social rights viewpoint, while also highlighting some shortcomings in its reasoning.
The case concerns the criminalisation of poverty, best described as punitive measures against people experiencing homelessness and poverty, with public order, economic considerations and public discomfort with visible poverty frequently cited as justifications. Like the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the ECSR is a monitoring body under the Council of Europe. Established in 1966, the ECSR monitors the respect of the social rights enshrined in the European Social Charter. It was vested in 1998 with the mandate to receive collective complaints, which led to the current decision. As this blog post discusses, the ESCR’s decision contrasts sharply with the ECtHR’s case law on this topic to date.
The contested municipal decrees target (oftentimes life-sustaining) poverty-related behaviours, such as begging, occupying public spaces for prolonged periods, congregating in groups (with or without dogs), misusing communal facilities, consuming alcohol, playing music loudly or urinating in public. Municipalities justify such regulations on the basis of, inter alia, public order and tourist appeal.
However, the evidence provided by the complainant organisations suggests that in reality the mere presence of homeless or begging people in public spaces triggered police action. They argue that rather than targeting concrete instances of threatening behaviour, this aimed to simply invisibilise poverty (para 57). Accordingly, conduct including begging, occupying public spaces, consuming alcohol and urinating in public was routinely fined and the persons concerned were removed from urban centres (para 68).
FEANTSA and FIDH contend that the decrees are grounded in anti-poor prejudice, reinforcing their stigma and social exclusion, while also disregarding the prevalence of specific vulnerabilities among the targeted population. They further submit that there was no adequate regulatory framework in place in France to circumscribe the proliferation of the decrees in question in line with human rights standards.
The Committee unanimously concluded that France violated its obligations based on the Revised European Social Charter (‘Charter’) by permitting the proliferation of municipal decrees regulating begging and other conduct. This was found to be indirectly discriminatory against certain groups on the grounds of socio-economic status (Article E of the Charter). What is more, the Committee held that France permitted the proliferation of such decrees without the availability of an effective remedy for those concerned. The municipal prohibitions of certain behaviours were deemed to ultimately penalise poverty as such – contrary to France’s obligation to ensure adequate protection against poverty and social exclusion under Article 30 of the Charter.
A violation of the right to protection against poverty and social exclusion
Article 30 of the Charter contains the right to be protected against poverty and social exclusion. Next to stipulating this right, the article also sets out the correlative obligation on the State to adopt an “overall and co-ordinated approach to promote the effective access of persons who live or risk living in a situation of social exclusion or poverty […] to, in particular, employment, housing, training, education, culture and social and medical assistance.”
The Committee’s assessment focuses on both dimensions of Article 30. It undertakes a strict proportionality review, examining i) whether the restriction on Article 30 was prescribed by law, ii) pursued a legitimate purpose, such as the protection of the rights and freedom of others, the public interest, national security, public health, or morals, and iii) was necessary in a democratic society to pursue this purpose. It is worth noting that the Committee applies the final leg of proportionality review, the necessity test, stringently in the present case, that is, any restriction should be the least restrictive means available in terms of its impact on Charter rights (para 67).
Upon confirming that the contested decrees indeed had a legal basis – albeit vague and unforeseeable – (para 69), the Committee moves on to examining the stated purpose of the decrees. While dismissing any economic arguments to justify rights restrictions, it accepts the protection of the rights and freedoms of others as the broader aim of the measures. Nevertheless, it asserts that “begging does not in itself disturb public order and that the impugned decrees address manifestations of poverty rather than conduct posing an actual threat to public safety or tranquillity” (para 70, also 72).
The necessity review – a strong, substantive engagement with the scope of Article 30
The crux of the assessment is the Committee’s thorough examination of the necessity of the measures (paras 71 et seq).
Firstly, the Committee concludes that the penalisation appears to be mainly informed by “public prejudice towards people who engage in begging or sleeping rough than of an actual danger to public order,” hence not capable of protecting the rights and freedoms of others and public order (para 73). By doing so, it decidedly shifts the burden of proof to the French decision-making authorities, away from the applicants. This is in stark contrast to, e.g., the ECtHR’s inadmissibility decision in Dian v Denmark (discussed by Ganty).
The following assessment is genuinely far-sighted and strongly rights-advancing. The Committee reiterates the international human rights framework, notably the need to protect people living in poverty from negative stigma, which wrongly suggest that they are responsible for their situation (para 99) and which often result in verbal and physical abuse. It also makes reference to the “growing international consensus around the position that penalising life-sustaining activities in public spaces violates human rights” (para 82; cf. recent pronouncements by the Inter-American and African human rights bodies).
Contrary to the punitive approaches that prevail in the municipal regulations under review, the Committee reads Article 30 of the Charter as prescribing measures to “foster community awareness about homelessness, built on empathy and understanding” (para 73). This constitutes a crucial point in the Committee’s reasoning, which also informs its interpretation of what an appropriate policy response would look like in light of the European Social Charter.
Secondly, the Committee thoroughly examines the effects of the decrees in practice. It emphasises that begging, in many cases, represents a means of survival (para 74) and therefore concludes that the systematic removal by the police of those concerned from urban centres deprives them “of one of the last means available to meet their basic needs”, deepens their social exclusion, disrupts their access to essential services (food distribution, shelter, healthcare, etc) and ultimately infringes their autonomy (para 76). This “double victimisation” violates their human dignity, exacerbates negative stigma and prejudice, and causes or reinforces trauma (ibid, also para 83).
This analysis compellingly demonstrates how an adjudicatory body can (and indeed should) take the effect on the rights-holder(s) as starting point in its assessment – rather than the (vaguely defined) reasonableness of the policy measure in question, as so often done in the adjudication of rights, especially when socio-economic matters are concerned (e.g., Dian v Denmark, Hudorovic & Ors. v Slovenia, Garib v the Netherlands). The Committee substantively engages with the normative scope of the rights concerned and the harm suffered. What is more, it relies on extensive statistical evidence presented to it by the complainant organisations (e.g., para 75), which paints a shocking picture of the rise of poverty and homelessness in recent years in France, disproportionately affecting children.
Thirdly, in the final prong of its proportionality review, the Committee assesses whether any less restrictive means had been available to the decision-making authorities (paras 77 et seq). Mirroring, to some degree, the ECtHR’s distinction of a blanket ban vs. a qualified ban on begging in Lăcătuş v Switzerland (2021) (and in its inadmissibility decision in Dian v Denmark (2024)), the Committee finds that, despite their geographical and temporal limitations, “the municipal decrees in question confer arbitrary discretion on law-enforcement authorities in determining what conduct will attract sanction, akin to a blanket ban” (para 79). In this context, it commendably highlights the “stark imbalance of power between police agents and people living on the street” (ibid). Ultimately, the Committee finds that the contested decrees fail the necessity test of proportionality review. It therefore concludes that there was a violation of Article 30 of the Charter.
Nevertheless, I consider the reasoning in this final prong to be the weakest part. Even though the Committee finds a way to apply a high threshold (by qualifying the municipal decrees as akin to a blanket ban), I argue that the distinction drawn between a blanket prohibition and a qualified (or nuanced) prohibition of begging does not provide any further clarity and is therefore unhelpful. The Committee would have been better off refraining from echoing this distinction pioneered by the ECtHR, as any kind of prohibition of begging and other conduct commonly adopted by people living in poverty is difficult to reconcile with human rights. A qualified prohibition would most likely also fail the necessity test because of its severe adverse effects on persons living in poverty – something this very decision specifically emphasises. In Heri’s words, any kind of prohibition erases “visible deprivation from the public sphere without resolving it” (see similar arguments put forward by Ganty).
Finally, the Committee’s conclusions sketch out what an adequate, rights-enhancing, co-ordinated and advancement-focused policy response in line with Article 30 would look like (para 81, see also para 76): Rather than a punitive approach, which exacerbates the situation of people living in poverty, homelessness and poverty should be addressed through collaborative, rights-based and trauma-informed approaches, such as partnerships between local police forces and social service providers to facilitate access to essential services. According to the Committee, this would also help to foster mutual trust between those affected and the police.
A focus on the effects on those most marginalised
The Committee also examines the complaint through the lens of the Charter’s non-discrimination clause (Article E), read in conjunction with Article 30. The open-ended non-discrimination clause has been interpreted to include poverty and socio-economic status (also here) as grounds of discrimination. The Committee deems the decrees to be indirectly discriminatory on the ground of socio-economic status (para 100), for they are generally based on stereotypes and prejudice against a disadvantaged group, and, by singling out for punishment conduct “that is inextricably linked to, and effectively defines, the status of being homeless” (para 96).
This discriminatory effect of punitive approaches to poverty is also evidenced in the joint report issued by the UN Special Rapporteurs on extreme poverty and human rights and on adequate housing in 2024. [It is worth noting that the same Olivier de Schutter who co-drafted this report as Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, is a member of the Committee and was, in this capacity, involved in this decision.]
Lastly and importantly, throughout its decision the Committee takes the perspective of those targeted by the contested regulations. It dismantles preconceived concepts of poverty and disentangles them into the multiple “physical, economic, cultural, and social obstacles, from which it may be difficult to escape without assistance” (para 99). Yet, despite this strong focus on affected rights-holders, the Committee fails to integrate any kind of participatory element in its assessment. There is no mention whatsoever of the meaningful consultation of those concerned. This is despite the Committee affording some weight to the meaningful consultation of affected rights-holders in other decisions (e.g., Greek General Confederation of Labour v Greece) and despite the increasing recognition that the genuine involvement of rights-holders as key knowledge-holders in designing and reviewing policy measures is crucial.
This decision powerfully addresses the systemic issue of the criminalisation of poverty – a pressing concern, given the increasing use of regulations penalising conduct associated with poverty across Europe –, focusing on structural vulnerabilities and barriers. In that respect, the decision is a far cry from the ECtHR’s Lăcătuş judgment. People who beg or who engage in other poverty-related conduct liable to penalisation have been pushed to the very margins of society; they are excluded from society in every aspect of their lives. The Committee clearly recognises that criminalising their behaviour serves only to push these marginalised groups even further away from ‘mainstream’ society.
Moreover, the Committee demonstrates why and how any interference with the rights of people living in, or at risk of, poverty should be carefully scrutinised – not only because the individuals concerned are in a particularly vulnerable position and often subject to a cycle of disadvantages and exclusion from society (or ‘povertyism’, that is, negative stereotyping of people in poverty), but also because international human rights law has been increasingly interpreted and applied to include socio-economic grounds as prohibited grounds of discrimination.
Another opportunity for the Committee to take a strong stance on this issue is presented by the separate collective complaint regarding begging bans in Belgium, lodged in 2023. This pending case could also offer the chance to incorporate a participatory approach in its assessment.
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