Leon Melin

Free-PiPi Leon Melin

Paris is the greatest tourist destination in the world, and yet until recently the streets were covered in dog dirt. Not only did the doggy doings make walking unpleasant, they also hid the more human goings-on; for Paris is also the capital of male micturation. Only when dog-fouling was banned in France did this problem become apparent. In the City of Lights, every dark corner embraced a man urinating. For Paris has no free public toilets. So one man set out to change that, and he used every trick in the Internet age to make it work. From a single free toilet on the Champs-Élysées, he launched a global brand that encircled the globe. Free toilets should have been welcomed by everyone, but they were not. Almost immediately, there were complaints: from those who had made money charging for toilets; from those who lost business to the new guys on the block; and from those who hadn't thought about it before; or who tried to copy the idea and failed. Then, things got serious, so serious that it became more about life and death, than about free toilets. This is the story of Free-PiPi.