Sticking without damage
The question we get asked most. Here is the long answer — the one our placing charter sums up in ten lines.
The rule fits in one sentence
A surface meant for free posting, or the wall owner's agreement. Outside those two cases, sticking something on someone else's property is damage, however good the thing you are sticking.
That is all. The rest of this page explains what those two cases cover, and why the distinction matters more than the size of the sticker.
Free-posting boards, which really exist
In France every town is required to set aside space for opinion posters and for non-profit announcements. Those are the free-posting boards: public surfaces, often metal or wood, sometimes tucked away, where anyone may post without asking first.
How many there are depends on the size of the town, and the town hall knows where they are. It is the safest place for a sticker, and the dullest: everybody posts there, and you are covered over within a week.
Some cities add free expression walls, meant for painting and pasting. Those are different surfaces and local rules vary: the town hall or the street-cleaning department answers that question in one phone call.
The owner's permission
A private wall belongs to someone. A shopkeeper, a landlord, a resident, an association. Asking takes thirty seconds and completely changes the nature of what you are doing: with agreement you are decorating; without it you are damaging.
The agreement does not need to be written for a five-centimetre sticker, but you should be able to say who gave it. Our ambassadors ask, and sometimes walk away without sticking anything.
A wall already carrying dozens of stickers is not thereby authorised. Tolerance is not permission, and it can end the day the owner decides to clean up.
What is off limits, everywhere, no exceptions
Monuments, listed façades, artworks, old stone. Glue that comes off badly on porous stone takes the surface with it.
Road signs, traffic lights, safety equipment. Covering even part of a sign endangers people, and it is treated that way.
Vehicles, shop windows, letterboxes, front doors. These are private property whose daily use a sticker gets in the way of, and their owner notices immediately.
New street furniture, parking meters, charging points. Technically public property, but the person cleaning it does not distinguish a sticker from a tag.
What the law provides for
Under French law, sticking without permission falls under minor damage to property belonging to another. It is a petty offence when the damage is slight and a criminal offence when it is not — the line is drawn by the cleaning bill, not by the intent.
Fly-posting is separately sanctioned by the environment code, regardless of damage: it targets the act of posting outside authorised places.
In practice, a five-centimetre sticker on a smooth, removable surface almost never ends up in court. That is no reason to put one anywhere: a rule does not become false because it is rarely enforced.
Abroad, local law wins
Our stickers travel, and the rules look nothing alike from one country to the next. Singapore punishes severely what Berlin looks at with indifference. Some cities treat fly-posting as a criminal matter, others as a simple administrative lapse.
The instruction we give our ambassadors is simpler than comparative law: when in doubt, do not stick. No sticker is worth a fine abroad, let alone a night in a cell.
Placing it properly, technically
A smooth, non-porous surface: painted metal, plastic, the glass of a posting board, varnished wood. A porous surface holds the glue and makes removal destructive.
At hand height, not up high. A sticker nobody can peel off without a ladder is a sticker nobody will peel off.
Never cover someone else's work. It is the one rule the scene enforces without needing a law.
Leave with your rubbish, backing paper included. What is left on the ground is what separates passing through from making a mess.
Why we care about this page
Social.Claims depends entirely on people placing things properly. A badly placed sticker is vandalism — and a project whose stickers are torn off within the week has no stickers left.
Our placing charter is public, binding, and explicitly accepted by every ambassador before anything is entrusted to them. It says the same as this page, in fewer words.
This page describes what we apply and why. It is not legal advice: when in doubt about a specific surface, the town hall or the wall's owner settles it better than we can.