One attraction at a fun park in Paris (left) has been banned today by French authorities and later dismantled and put away by its owner.
Visitors to
la Fête à Neu-Neu in the outskirts of Paris could admire an authentic, working electric chair imported straight from the United States. What's more, the park would periodically "execute" a puppet for guests' entertainment -- and they could watch as the mannequin flopped around and screamed as the voltage coursed through his body. At the end, the dummy's head would slump forward, smoke drifting up from the hood over his head.
The electric chair belongs to Stéphane Camors, 40, who bought it for $10,000 in Florida. He first had it on display at a fun park near Milan in Italy and was charging visitors €1.65 to watch the dummy die. The park manager told
La Repubblica in July that 50 executions were performed daily, with 150 taking place on Sunday.
Protests against the macabre act, though, shut down the electric chair attraction. "It is my dragon or my King Kong, it's just an adornment," the owner told AFP. "It's not meant to glorify the death penalty."
The death penalty is not only illegal in the European Union but also severely frowned upon as a form of punishment, making this form of entertainment particularly politically incorrect.
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