Human touch at foot of the stairs

They take out the garbage, sweep stairwells, keep a trained eye peeled for trespassers and listen to gripes, gossip and heartaches, especially among the elderly living alone.

But the inimitable “concierge” -- the apartment building guardian who is part maid, part watchman, part therapist and an institution in France -- is vanishing from its urban landscape. With the concierge goes a centuries-old lifestyle.

Concierges are as much a part of the French identity as baguettes with meals and wine with cheese. The concierge concept is literally built into older buildings -- in the strategically placed small ground-floor dwellings where they live and keep An eye on the premises.

But in the last decade, Paris alone has lost at least 10,000 concierges, and France has lost 100,000 -- replaced mainly by cleaning companies, according to experts and those behind a campaign to save them.

The campaigners include conservative lawmaker Pierre Lellouche, who says outside services are less expensive for residents but can’t deliver a concierge’s human touch. The elderly, especially, benefit from the personal attention.

“The role of the concierge is irreplaceable on a human level,” Lellouche said.

To save concierges, he wants tax breaks for apartment owners who employ them. His proposal, backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s governing party, could go before parliament soon.

Eugenie Manuel, a concierge for 31 years and secure in her job, regrets her vocation’s slow demise.

“It is really too bad. There are elderly, often without families, with no one to say a little hello,” she said.

Manuel typifies the guardians of Paris apartment houses and the quiet influence they can have. Portuguese-born like many Paris concierges, she has created a small garden in the building’s courtyard, complete with a cage of parakeets.

“Everyone participates, buying plants each year,” and birds too, Manuel said. “I like this job, and what I do, I do with love and respect.”

“People confide in us. You listen but you have to forget,” said Jean-Michel Hennequin, who started the keep-the-concierge campaign. “We’re supposed to be neutral.”

Hennequin, 53, says his concierge job in Sucy-en-Brie, east of Paris, took him off the street and put a roof over his head. Today, his rent is paid and he makes $2,355 a month.

The job goes beyond keeping a building clean. Concierges can check on elderly residents, run to the pharmacy, let in the electrician and take care of pets for vacationing residents.

A concierge “is part of the life of a building,” said urban sociologist Herve Marchal of the University of Nancy, in eastern France. Losing one “is a loss because France is an aging country.”

Beyond rendering small services, a concierge can be a vital emotional presence.

“The concierge is the confidant, the one you tell your little secrets to,” Marchal said by telephone. Concierges “know all the secrets, like whether a man is cheating on his wife.”

They can even help reduce incivilities and delinquency, said Marchal, who studied their role in poor neighborhoods in eastern France.

Concierges, as they exist today, have been a mainstay in France from at least the 18th century. However, some trace the origins of the job, opening doors and guarding against theft, to the Middle Ages.