The ordeal of an elderly couple, who had to prove their case when their holiday home was occupied by squatters in order to kick them out during a lengthy procedure lasting several weeks, has provoked a considerable outcry in France. Weighing in on the case, the capital s deputy mayor has made a shocking statement, arguing that illegally occupying someone else s property is sometimes acceptable.

We have already covered the nightmare 75-year-old French pensioner Henri Kaloustian had to face when trying to enter his holiday home, only to find out that his once empty house had been occupied by a family with two children. The squatters claimed the locks were changed not by them but by a third person who rented out the property to them. Altough authorities eventually removed the intruders, the case is not over and lengthy legal proceedings are expected.

The squatters will go on trial in October, but legal proceedings may take up to two years because the property is the owner s second, so-called holiday home, which he rarely visits from his primary home 500 km away, according to the weekly Valeurs actuelles newspaper.

The case has enjoyed extensive media coverage and many were outraged that French law protects the squatters and not the owners. Covering the incident, Cnews talked to Anne-Claire Boux, a deputy mayor in Paris, and received a rather shocking, unexpected answer.

Instead of condemning those who unlawfully break into and occupy other people s properties, Anne-Claire Boux appeared to take the squatters side, saying they may have been forced to move into others property because of homelessness or other conditions that we do not know about. Housing problems affect a large proportion of the French, which is why Paris has introduced a social housing scheme, the deputy mayor said.

Responding to the deputy mayor s statements jurist Jonas Haddad, another guest of the show, highligted the fact that being a tenant or an arbitrary occupant were two completely different legal categories. Those in the latter group, he said, were not struggling with any housing problems because they simply decided to break the law, which clearly states that entering a property without the owner s permission is an offence. The current laws in France, however, do not allow for the immediate eviction of squatters once they have spent more than 48 hours in or on the property, which Jonas Haddad described as outrageous and unacceptable.