Poor family ordered to leave Paris museum

PARIS

AFP Photo

A French family were ordered to leave one of Paris’s most popular museums as their body odor was disturbing other visitors, British daily Telegraph has reported.

The couple were on a free trip to the Musee d’Orsay with their young child, thanks to a charity that supports hard-up families. As the group browsed a room with paintings by Van Gogh, security guards told them they had to leave the building because people were “complaining about their smell.”

A worker with the Act for Dignity charity said: “I argued with the security man, telling him the family were all decent and properly dressed. Not a single other person had complained about it so I refute the idea that it was their smell. We moved on to another room, but we were met by four museum guards who ordered us out of the building.”

Claire Hedon, vice-president of the charity, said she had written to Aurelie Filippetti, the French culture minister, to complain about the incident.

The director of the museum told the French media he was “saddened” by the treatment of the family.