User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in France

Public toilets in France are called pissoir, sanisettes, les toilettes and WC. There is a mix of both free and pay toilets, with pay toilets costing less than €1 per use. Public toilet first began to appear in France during the 1860s and 1870s.

Public toilets
Word to describe public toilets include pissoir, sanisettes, les toilettes and WC. The local word for toilet paper is Papier toilette, the word for men's toilet is hommes and the word for women's toilet is femmes.

Public toilets in train stations often require payment to use. Many department stores have attendants, who expect to be tipped after use. One place people use when there is a lack of public toilets are the facilities at fast food style restaurants. sanisettes are free. Stand alone public toilets located on the streets of Paris require payment to use. It is common for there to be a small cost to use a public toilet. This fee was generally less than €1. In cities like Paris, London and Amsterdam, public toilets often cost money to use, and have a time limit of 15 minutes. Many of the ones set up as self-contained units on the street are self-disinfecting. Western Europe tends to use flush toilets, with some older public toilets possibly having pull cords instead of handles or buttons.

Boulevard Arago in Paris has one of the last remaining public urinals, called vespasiennes, built in the 1960s. After that, the government started building the vespasiennes with pay toilets with attendants.

History
The bidet was invented in France in the 1600s. Despite toilet paper being used in parts of China starting in the mid-800s, paper was expensive to produce and considered valuable; this meant most places did not start using toilet paper until relatively late. Flush toilets were introduced in Europe during the 1860s and soon became quite popular. Many people used newspapers for toilet paper in the early part of the 20th century. Rolls of toilet paper were first sold in Europe in 1928. Soft paper rolls were not introduced to Europe until 1942.

The lack of public toilets caused a stink on the streets in major cities in the 1850s. The 1867 Guide-Paris said the sewage technology in the city surpassed that of Ancient Rome. Pissoirs started to be built in Paris by 1865. Public urinals were found in Paris in 1875. They had some screens for privacy. These early public toilets were not sex-segregated.

The first sex-segregated women's toilets were used in Paris in 1739, with organizers of a party setting up one room with chamber pots for women and another room with chamber pots for men. In the 1960s and 1970s, gay men, both locals and Arabs from countries like Algeria, often hung out at public toilets.

The Covid-19 pandemic meant that many of the public toilets accessible in public libraries in Paris closed down because of reduced hours as a result of various lockdowns.

Paris
Sanisettes are only able to be locked for 15 minutes. This is done to prevent them being used by prostitutes and drug dealers. After a person leaves them, a self-cleaning feature is activated and users need to wait for the light to go green before they can use it again.

46% of the Parisians were leery about using public toilets in the 2010s, many because they believe the cleanliness is a problem. The percentage is higher among women, with 53% avoiding them compared to 38% of men. Men in Paris in the 2010s practiced open urination in public spaces. The city tried to discourage this practice because of opposition from local residents and tourists.

The 5th-floor restrooms at the Galeries Lafayette department store were public toilets in Paris in 2021 that had beautiful views of the city. The toilets at the Drouot auction house had red carpet in them in 2021. The Pere Lachaise Cemetery had several public toilets in 2021. The Josephine Baker swimming pool on the Seine River had public toilet facilities in 2021. A bar in Paris had urinals inspired by the Rolling Stones logo.

History
Public urination and open defecation were banned by law during the 1700s. Despite this, people continued the practice in Paris into the 1900s.

Sewage contaminated the Siene by the 1800s, creating problems for the city in terms of supplying drinking water to the population. In the 1800s, Barrels of Easement were placed on street corners as places for people to urinate and defecate as a way to reduce people doing this on the street. As a result of the first Cholera outbreak in the 1830s in Paris, over 8000 meters of sewers would be added by the end of the decade. The first public urinal in Paris appeared in 1834 and was introduced by Claude Phiber Berthelot Comte de Rambuteau. His work would later be built upon 19 years later by George Haussmann.

After Louis Napoleon was elected president in 1848, one of his early major interests was improving Paris, and sanitation would later become part of that. That year, a cholera outbreak killed 19,000 people in the city, in large part because of hygiene and sanitation issues in the city. Haussmann was elected to design a plan to modernize Paris in 1853. His plan included new public squares, new gardens, new sewers, new water ducts and new street furniture that included public urinals. These new public urinals were connected to the sewer lines. By 1860s, public urinals, both the Vespassien and Pissoir, had were nicknamed Chalet De Necessite. Around this time, another change had been made to these, enclosing them and providing services to women.

Public urinals were found in Paris in 1875. They had some screens for privacy. The Jennings & Company had installed their flush toilets in public toilets in Paris, Florence, Madrid, Berlin, Sydney and South America by 1895. Around 1930, around 1200 of the original Pissoirs remained in the city. The city did not begin phasing the design out until the 1960s. By the 2020s, only one Pissoir remained, and that one is is maintained by the the Paris Roads Heritage department. The first Sanisettes were introduced in 1981, with around 400 pay to use ones opened around the city.

Paris' transgender population began to advocate in the 1990s to use the public toilet that best aligned with their gender identity instead of their sex. The issue soon became contentious, especially as in some cases it required redesigning public toilets to cater to security needs expressed by the transgender community.

An explosive device was planted at a public toilet on place Charles-Vallin in Paris on 4 September 1995. As a result of the 2005 Disability Policy, many Sanisettes became disability accessible. Les sanisettes became free to use in 2006. In 2016, Paris Mayor Ann Hidalgo announced that 200 public toilets would be built as part of efforts to revive tourism in the French capital. There were over 400 Sanisettes in Paris by 2018.

The closures of public dining and drinking locations in Paris during the covid pandemic made it even harder for people to find public toilets they could use. Those that were available often ended up with long lines. During the covid-19 pandemic, men were even more likely to engage in public urination. This included at historic locations like Place de la Republique.

Quantity and location
A 2021 study found there were 23 public toilets per 100,000 people. Paris had 3.47 public toilets per square kilometer of open space in 2018. There were 435 freestanding sanisettes in Paris in 2021. When people used these in 2021, one of the biggest issues was they often lacked toilet paper. Most of the locals knew it was best to always carry toilet paper with them as a result. The toilets were housed in small steel structures with some degree of automated cleaning. In 2021, Paris had 435 self-cleaning public toilets that were managed by the city. As a result of frequent public lockdowns, their usage declined by 20% from the previous year. In 2021, Paris had 50 stand-up public urinals. There were around 300 public toilets managed by organizations located at parks and gardens in Paris in 2021.