Outcry over book donor litter fine

The sixty-eight-year-old woman had left a book on the pavement in the XVIII arrondissement hoping that a member of the public would pick it and the book would 'find its owner'.

However the mayoral authorities had a different perception of this cultural gesture, giving her a procès-verbal for leaving litter on the pavement.

The woman told France Bleu it was "symptomatic of our era where the fact that we try to frame everything and apply the law zealously makes us lose our commonsense".

Her story has solicited plenty of support from people online who said that she should continue to "put some poetry into life".

The mairie de Paris has since described the fine as a mistake and has cancelled it.