Washing the Sidewalks

In Paris, the sidewalk or troittor is cleaned on a regular basis with water. The city workers use high pressure hoses to spray debris off the sidewalk, and people often hose down the area in front of their stores and apartments as well. This makes for some awkward manoeuvring while walking in Paris because I often find myself jumping over puddles or taking odd routes to avoid being sprayed by with water. I'm not sure if this is common practice in Europe, or more of a Parisien thing... I haven't seen it done that often in Canada. I wonder if it is an effective process? Maybe it's not even a cleaning process and is done for some other reason that I don't know of....