Paris votes on whether electric scooters should be banned
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On 2 April, Paris will decide whether the capital city’s 15,000 for-hire electric scooters will survive.
The city hall has called for a referendum asking residents: “Do we or don’t we continue with free-floating rental scooters?”
These for-hire scooters, which can be picked up using a mobile app and left anywhere, have become a divisive issue. Some residents say that they block pavements, are dangerous for pedestrians and generally clog up the streets.
Others believe they are an effective non-polluting alternative to public transport for getting around the French capital.
In 2022 alone, police reported more than 400 accidents with electric mobility devices where 459 people were injured.
The vote has been billed as a “public consultation” rather than a referendum by mayor Anne Hidalgo.
The pro-cycling Socialist leader announced the vote in January to settle the issue of whether they should be allowed.
She favours a ban, calling the devices a “source of tension and worry” for Parisians in an interview with AFP on Thursday.
Transport Minister Clement Beaune expects the poll to result in a ban, while some operators also privately fear a negative result unless their mostly young users turn out to vote.
“It’s an important consultation that will be watched by a lot of other towns in France and overseas,” Beaune told Europe 1 radio on Wednesday. “I find it a shame that we have caricatured and dumbed down the debate.
“Instead of having it as ‘for’ or ‘against’, we could do ‘for, with rules’,” he said.
He argues that e-scooters are a valuable new transport solution that have replaced up to one in five journeys in Paris that would have previously involved an emissions-producing vehicle.
A total of 1.6 million people are eligible to vote, but turnout is expected to be low. Results are scheduled to be released in the evening.
