Now the mayor, Robert Ménard, is turning up the heat. He has instituted a policy where dogs walking on the main streets must have their DNA on file with the local government. People must carry dog “passports” to prove they complied. If dog poop is found, the city will be authorized to test it to uncover which dog did it. And the owner will be forced to pay for the cleanup.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” Ménard told The Washington Post.

Ménard, a former journalist who has aligned with France’s far right, argues that people not picking up after their dogs is a symptom of a lack of civility in France. If authorities do not enforce the rules, he said, there will be no incentive for people to act in the public interest.

While his dog poop crackdown is a temporary test, set to last until July 2025, it is sure to raise some eyebrows in France, where individual liberty is cherished above all else — it’s the first of three values listed in the country’s national motto.

While the country is known for its bureaucracy, or “paperasserie,” and for the number of rules and regulations on its books, those rules are not always respected.

Ménard is not alone in resorting to extreme measures to deal with this particular problem: Similar policies have been rolled out by homeowners groups and by other cities, including Tel Aviv in Israel and Valencia in Spain, where authorities say the threat of fines has helped tackle the problem of feces in public spaces. But some have criticized the policies as government overreach.

Using DNA to catch canine culprits — and their owners

Starting this month, dog owners in Béziers will be required to carry a document proving that they registered their dog’s DNA when walking in certain central parts of the city.

After a two-month grace period — in which authorities will seek to inform dog owners of the new policy — those who do not have their dog’s genetic passport will be fined 38 euros ($43).

If feces are left behind and traced back to a particular dog, that owner will receive a bill for the city’s cleaning service worth 122 euros ($136).

Authorities in Béziers hope the threat of a fine will help reduce the time and money sanitation workers spend picking up dog feces in the streets — which they did 25,607 times in 2020, 39,847 times in 2021 and 21,313 times as of Nov. 30, 2022, according to the decree.

Every year, the city spends 80,000 euros ($89,495) on picking up dog poop, the decree says.

Questions remain over implementation. The city plans to put out a call for bids to hire a lab to test the dogs’ samples. The municipality doesn’t yet know how accurate the DNA test results will be or how costly the process.

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Dog feces left on streets can be a risk to public health because they carry microorganisms, including bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, which can spread to other animals and to people, sometimes causing disease.

To incentivize dog owners, the city will organize free DNA tests for dogs in September, where owners can submit their dogs’ saliva samples and receive the document, Ménard said. Dog owners can also go to their veterinarians.

As The Post has reported, some cities and landlords have gone to even greater lengths to try to get poop off their streets — from mailing excrement back to dog owners to hiring private detectives to identify offenders and their dogs.

Cities go to extreme lengths to tackle a dog poop epidemic

Ménard first proposed the idea of genetic testing for dogs in 2016, and it was approved by the city council. But the vote was rejected by a court in Montpellier following a challenge from the “sous-préfet,” the representative of the French state in a particular locality, who said that it infringed on personal liberties, according to local radio station France Bleu Hérault.

Ménard refined his proposal and refiled a municipal decree in May. No one contested it within the two-month period set out for legal challenges, and the policy took effect last week.

Ménard cited the implementation of similar policies in other parts of the world as a motivating factor. Citing Valencia’s mayor, he said that the Spanish city saw a 90 percent decline in dog poop over six months after implementing a fine.

The policy is mostly aimed at locals, Ménard told France Bleu Hérault on Sunday. If a visitor to the city is “not from Béziers and if he picks up his [dog’s] droppings, honestly, I’m not going to bother him.” In fact, outsiders aren’t the problem, he told the outlet. “It’s us, the [people of Béziers], who don’t do the work.”

“We are the ones who must lead by example,” he added.