Paris has become the first European capital to ban self-service electric scooters
This follows a referendum in April in which Parisians voted to ban the battery-powered-scooters, confirming that many regarded them as an unbearable nuisance.
Banned from the French capital by popular vote, self-service electric scooters are enjoying their last day in Paris on Thursday, marking the end of five years of controversial use, much to the dismay of their users.
From 1 September, Paris will become the first European capital to completely ban these self-service two-wheelers. Many Parisians have become fed up with seeing them zigzagging between pedestrians, even when limited to 10 km/h in certain zones, or parking in the middle of pavements, and a number of accidents have been attributed to them.
The three operators, Lime, Tier and Dott, will lose their authorisation to occupy public space after an unprecedented ‘vote’ in early April. The “no” vote won by almost 90 per cent, but only 7.46 per cent of people on the electoral roll turned out to vote.
The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, had herself campaigned for the “no” vote, stressing that the removal of these scooters would reduce “nuisance”.
Since August, the 15,000 scooters have gradually been taken off the streets – only a handful were available on Thursday, mainly in the centre of Paris – to be sent to other cities for repair.
Of the 5,000 scooters produced by the German company Tier, a third will remain in the Paris region, in 80 communes around Marne-la-Vallée or Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The rest will go mainly to Germany.
Dott will be sending its scooters to Belgium and Tel Aviv. Lime’s green scooters will go to Lille, London, Copenhagen and several German cities.
The operators are banking on their customers switching to bicycles, which are already offered by everyone, which should enable them to avoid redundancies, at least for the time being.
Read more via Euronews
