The privatisation of public spaces in France, the UK, the US and Germany

Public spaces enjoyed special status and protection under public law in the jurisdictions we are studying. This protection was usually afforded because these spaces were owned by public bodies. With the privatisation of State functions, the use of private mechanisms to finance construction in cities or the development of malls, these are increasingly under private hands. We will review the litigation that occured (that involve mainly the clash between the right of property and freedom of assembly) in several jurisdictions to understand how different legal systems got around the difficulty and in order to see how, in the future, the French law of property could resolve this issue.