Squatters handed 80,000-euro bill

Eight squatters from the group Jeudi noir (Black Thursday) have been ordered by a Paris court to pay 80,666.52 euros to the owner of a building they occupied for 15 months.

Manuel from Nantes

A judge on Monday ordered the students to pay the “occupation compensation” to the owner of 69, rue de Sèvres, in Paris’s sixth arrondissement, a five-storey building that they occupied between April 2008 and June 2009.

The owner can take funds directly from the students’ accounts, and can continue to do so for 10 years. She has only recovered 6,000 euros so far.

She was demanding 311,500 euros in compensation, and a further 150,000 in costs to put the house in order.

The students point out that the owner has not rented or sold the house since they left it and accuse her of inventing damage

They were also ordered to pay a water bill of 667 euros.

"All our lives, we’ll have this debt weighing on us," said one of them, Jean-Marc Delaunay. “Once again, justice has not taken into account the right of accommodation, which is a constitutional right.”

The students will appeal the decision.