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Parking machine calls French mayor a b**tard

A scandal-hit French politician has launched a complaint after a parking machine in the town where is mayor issued around 500 tickets that called him a "thieving b**tard". Police are investigating.

Published: 4 June 2015 16:27 CEST
Parking machine calls French mayor a b**tard
A parking machine (left) and the French Mayor Jean-Francois Copé (right). Photo: AFP
French politicians are used to insults… but not from parking ticket machines
 
But that's exactly what happened to Jean-François Copé the scandal-hit mayor of the town of Meaux.
 
The politician, who is the former head of the newly-named French opposition party Les Republicains, quit the party last May after shocking revelations emerged over a funding scandal for Nicolas Sarkozy's failed 2012 election campaign.
 
But Copé is still in a position of power as mayor of the town to the north east of Paris, and it seems the local parking machines still bear a grudge against him – or at least someone who knows how they work.
 
Indeed, an estimated 500 tickets were issued to drivers bearing the usual date and time of arrival at the car park, along with an extra message at the bottom that read: “Copé is a bastard, thieving mayor” (see pic below).
 
 
Copé has now lodged a formal legal complaint concerning the machine in question to authorities. 
 
But surely it's not an opinionated computer spitting out the offensive tickets – so who's responsible?
 
One employee of the ticketing company told French newspaper Le Parisien that it must have been a fellow member of staff – as accessing the system required a log in, username, and a password.
 
Authorities, however, haven't ruled out that a hacker could be behind the attack and have launched an investigation.
 
In the tweet below, Copé found time to joke about the incident, praising the work of the local townsfolk, depite the fact that the town has “offensive” parking ticket machines.

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BORDER CONTROLS

Sweden to end ID checks at border with Denmark

Sweden is to end ID checks on buses, trains and ferries travelling between the country and Denmark, the Swedish government has announced.

Published: 2 May 2017 16:36 CEST
Sweden to end ID checks at border with Denmark
Commuters between Malmö and Copenhagen have been living with ID checks since January 2016. Photo: John Alexander Sahlin/TT

At the same time however, border control spot checks by police in place at some of Sweden's borders will be tightened to cover more travellers, and extended further. The controls will now include x-raying of vehicles and additional CCTV surveillance.

The temporary ID checks for rail, bus and ferry companies at the Öresund crossing and on ferries between the ports of Helsingør and Helsingborg were introduced in January 2016 as Sweden struggled to get to grips with an influx of refugees to the country. Last extended by three months in February, they are due to expire this week, and will not be extended.

Commuters in the busy Öresund region, where many travel between Malmö and Copenhagen for work, have complained about the ID checks causing disruption.

The checks followed on from the introduction of Swedish border controls in November 2015, which gave police the right to carry out checks on people wishing to enter Sweden from other Schengen Area states.

In contrast to the removal of ID checks, the border controls will be intensified. 

“The government's conclusion is that border controls are still needed and need to be strengthened,” interior minister Anders Ygeman said at a press conference explaining the end of ID checks and strengthening of border controls.

READ ALSO: Sales of commuter tickets between Sweden & Denmark drop as ID checks bite

Since the checks were introduced in early 2016 the number of asylum seekers coming to Sweden has reduced by around 80 percent, Ygeman explained, dropping from 10,000 per week to less than 500 per week at present.

READ ALSO: An in-depth look at Sweden's challenge integrating thousands of asylum seekers