PARIS: The glittering Christmas window displays in Paris's luxury stores are often offset by a shivering person begging for coins nearby, huddled behind a cardboard sign reading ''hungry''.

With the French economy in crisis and the looming spectre of another recession, Paris's poor and homeless are more present than ever in doorways and metro entrances. Campaigners have demanded action on the country's housing crisis. Instead the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has launched a war on beggars, setting himself against Paris's popular mayor.

Rounding up vagrants … Romanian police have been called in to make joint patrols to tackle delinquency problems blamed on Romanians in Paris. Credit:AFP

Mr Sarkozy's Interior Minister and long-time right-hand man, Claude Gueant, has issued a series of decrees banning begging around Paris's most popular Christmas shopping and tourist spots. He says arresting and fining beggars is crucial to stop foreign visitors being pestered by begging ''delinquents'' run by organised mafia gangs.

The Champs-Elysees was first on his list with a begging ban from September to January, which has been extended to next northern summer. Now two more Christmas begging no-go zones have been created: around the famous Galeries Lafayette and Printemps department stores, as well as the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens.