Fences in France
 

Sort of a random question that I didn't think needed its own thread, but I couldn't find a good place to put it.

Recently I was looking at Google Street View in towns all over France. Specifically, I was wondering what suburbs looked like around Paris, but that quickly disintegrated into just looking everywhere out of curiosity.

What I found was that all across France, it looks like almost every household has a front fence or wall with a gate in front of the driveway. It struck me as odd. Why is that? What cultural factors have contributed to this level of "defensible space"? Isn't it a pain in the butt to come home from a long day of work and have to open those gates to your driveways?

It's because French like to have a private space.

Fences arguably protect privacy in backyards.

I think front yard fences were originally something ornamental, although most fail to be so today.
Not everyone can afford a Louis xiv-style golden gate anyway.

Fact is they're just to keep people out of one's property now, to try to prevent burglaries, vandalism or any type of trespassing.

Even large multi-family buildings have front yard fences in many cases today.
That feels anti-urban and annoying.

I think detached homes in much of Southern Europe have similar walls and gates. Here in the UK those kind of homes often (but not always) have a short wall or fence but not very often a gate. The frontage of the home is usually on public display (and not often used by the residents I think except for parking) but the rear space is more often fenced off for privacy. Big walls and gates at the front is normally only for the largest houses here.

Realy?

This is common mostly for each European country.

In France, it is not customary to build a high fence around the house, and a Frenchwoman is more likely to say that the fence is only necessary so that the child does not run out of the yard onto the road. But a high wrought-iron fence is also common in the French construction tradition, which does not hide, but protects well, usually government offices. Such a concept as a French fence, which can be of two types, has become known all over the world. The first is a blank wall made of the so – called "French stone" - concrete blocks made by the method of vibropressing, invented in France.I studied this topic when I was going to install a fence on my site. I also found good professionals from everlastgates.com and I was very satisfied.

From my conversations with my friends, they seem to have a habit of doing that. No one's paying much attention to that.
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Opening the gates either to a drive way or to garage is a pain, it's true. But you are getting used to it as to any inevitable or necessary daily things.
It is more about being private and safe.
Also automatic gates are all around.