"The fine countdown"

When visiting the city of Calvi (Corsica), I saw a couple of parking spots with a sign post next to it that showed a timer. One of the timers was green and was counting down. Another one was red and was counting up. These countdown bollards were placed next to temporary parking spaces and I wondered what the intention of the countdown is.

I've not seen this parking solution in the Netherlands, but after a bit of research, I found out that this is more common in France. The concept of the countdown is that when a parking spot is used for more than 20 minutes, a visual cue is triggered to indicate the limit is exceeded. But for whom is this information?

• Is it a friendly reminder for the car-owner to finish shopping and to drive off?
• Is it a trigger for other drivers looking for a parking spot to start honking?
• Is it perhaps a form of public shaming that prevents people from "camping" on this spot?
• Or is it an easy check for law enforcement to see if they can fine a car that exceeded the limit?

I started reading about these machines and based on a couple of French comments, I could tell that this not intended as a municipality service, it's mostly to help out the "gendarmerie". I came across other examples online that even indicated the height of the parking ticket and that the police was notified.

The situation I encountered didn't included that extra bit of "motivation" to find another parking spot, but my guess is that the police wasn't actively chasing this. When I came back later that evening one of the meters was counting almost for 3 hours, so the countdown didn't really impress that much...