REPORTAGE
They are no longer welcome. Since Friday, a municipal decree prohibits the circulation to electric scooters, unicycles and other overboards on the sidewalks of Marseille. All these machines will now have to travel on the road. Exception to the rule: sidewalks on which a bicycle path is drawn. This measure, which is far from unanimous among all Marseillais, was taken because of too many incivilities on the part of users.
For some time now in Marseille, the new "game" in fashion, is the launch of a scooter to the sea. And if we add to that the behavior of some users, the bad reputation of these vehicles is no longer to do in the Phocaean city. Crossed at the corner of a sidewalk, Jean, pedestrian, does not even want to hear about it: "They hit you, go behind you, in front of you ... I even saw one who spit on an old," says -t it. "Once I was walking, and a man on an electric scooter was driving me over, shouting, 'I'm going to do it!' They're crazy, they have to be banned completely."
Traffic on the road "it's very dangerous, it's scary"
The prohibition promulgated by the municipality, Robert, follower of electric scooter, includes it in part. Helmet screwed on the head, he admits that scooters are "very dangerous because pedestrians do not hear them arrive". But he still regrets the restriction of traffic on bike paths: "we have very little," said this driver cautious. Then remains the macadam roads Marseille, an alternative that Robert does not seem to consider, "it's very dangerous, it's scary," he says at the microphone of Europe 1 simply wondering if he goes not "stop the scooter".
Between 11 and 38 euros of fine
Conversely, it does not take long to meet users who seem to believe that the public space belongs to them when they run on the streets of Marseille on an electric scooter. Launched in pairs on the same vehicle, two teenagers crossed by Europe 1 make fun of the municipal decree. "I'm going to death, I'm throwing them into the Old Port, I do not care!" It is precisely this kind of drift that led to the ban on traffic on the sidewalks.
"There are a number of nuisances," summarizes Jean-Luc Ricca, deputy mayor of Marseille. "Some young people even do some shopping on the sidewalks, so I hope that this decree will reduce the number of incivilities." Now, it will cost you between 11 and 38 fine if you are caught riding a scooter on an unauthorized sidewalk in Marseille.