The Motocrotte, officially called Caninette and informally chiraclette was a small motorized vehicle designed to vacuum up

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

faeces Feces (also known as faeces American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, or fæces; : faex) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and other French cities. Introduced in 1982 by

Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, ; ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Pari ...

(then

Mayor of Paris The mayor of Paris (, ) is the Chief executive officer, chief executive of Paris, the capital and largest city in France. The officeholder is responsible for the administration and management of the city, submits proposals and recommendations to ...

), the idea was to provide a rapid mobile strike force, which could travel great distances with access to

sidewalk A sidewalk (North American English), pavement (British English, South African English), or footpath (Hiberno-English, Irish English, Indian English, Australian English, New Zealand English) is a path along the side of a road. Usually constr ...

s in a minimum of time, to perform a very specific action. The fleet of 100 vehicles was based initially on Yamaha XT 550 and later the XT 600, with a large tank to the rear which housed both water and waste, attached to a vacuum-powered hose which was placed over the material required to be removed. The project was abandoned in 2002, for a new and better enforced local law which now fines dog owners up to 500

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

s for not removing their dog faeces. It was estimated at the time of their removal, that the fleet of 70 Motocrottes were cleaning up only 20% of dog faeces on Parisian streets, for an annual cost of £3million. Use continued in other French cities including Montpellier as of 2016.

References

External links

Paris-Chiens
History of Paris Dog equipment Waste collection vehicles Utility motorcycles {{France-stub

See also

References

External links