The french style of americanization of Homelessness in Bordeaux France in Von Mahs J., Don Mitchell (eds) Neo-Liberal Globalization and the Changing Geography of Poverty

International audienceAlthough homelessness, which first appeared in the United States, did not reach France until the 1990s, it progressively took root as an inescapable structural feature. Its American anteriority justifies considering whether the phenomenon in France is similar. Among the challenges, there is the sheer scale of the problem, the underlying gravity of the housing and job- market situation, the disengagement of the welfare state, and repressive management of the homeless. This study focuses on the main characteristics of homelessness, the extensive transformations in the treatment of the homeless, and the management of their visibility in public spaces. From an in-depth case study in Bordeaux, we can see how management of the homeless in public spaces corresponds to a new logic. It is no longer based on repression, but on an approach that involves the homeless in programs aimed at giving them an urban role in the form of street cleaning and participation in street arts. This new policy corresponds to a certain definition of neoliberalism in which homeless individuals themselves are the consenting instruments of this form of urban governance. France, Bordeaux, homeless, public space, governmentality.