The history of the French (and European) pissoir is long, nothing new here at all save people will nowadays probably misuse it!
These dirty habits are yet another reason for us to leave the EU of course
https://www.plumbworld.co.uk/blog/pissoirs-the-history-of-public-urinals-in-paris/
And from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pissoir
In the spring of 1830 the city government of Paris decided to install the first public urinals on the major boulevards. These structures served both as urinals and supports for posters and advertising. They were put in place by the summer, but in July they were put to a completely different purpose; providing materials for street barricades during the
French Revolution of 1830.
[2]
They were re-introduced in different form in Paris in 1841 by
Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau, the
Préfet of the former
Départment of the Seine. Initially having a simple cylindrical shape, they were also called
colonnes Rambuteau. In 1877 they were replaced by multi-compartmented structures called
vespasiennes,
[3] in reference to the 1st-century Roman emperor
Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who placed a tax on urine collected from
public toilets for use in tanning. At the peak of their spread in the 1930s there were 1,230 pissoirs in Paris, but by 1966 their number had decreased to 329. By 2006 only one remained, on Boulevard Arago.
[4][
self-published source] (From 1981 they had been replaced systematically with new technology, the
Sanisette.)
[5]
In Berlin the first pissoirs were erected in 1863. In order to distinguish them from those of other cities, several
architectural design competitions were organised in 1847, 1865 and 1877. One of the most successful types was an octagonal structure with seven stalls, first built in 1879. Their number increased to 142 by 1920.
[6]
Temporary pissoirs with multiple unscreened urinals around a central column have been introduced in the UK.
[7][8] A temporary pissoir for women called the Peeasy is used in Switzerland.
[9]
