In the streets of Lille, new grocery stores have appeared: itinerant shops aboard a bicycle.

Encouraged by the metropolis, this practice is successful in the context of the coronavirus health crisis, both economically and environmentally.

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Karim arrives by bike in the Lille Fives district, gets off his cargo bike and opens a huge wooden chest at the back.

In France, more than 760 workers have swapped their offices for a bicycle, according to the Boite à Vélo association.

They sell pizza, haul groceries, or repair bicycles.

Karim, he chose to set up an ecological and itinerant grocery store in Lille.

With the Covid, demand has "skyrocketed"

"On the top, we will have all the bulk-dry part with the bread and then on the bottom are all the seasonal vegetables that come from local producers and below, we also have drawers to put the fruit instead", Karim details by exposing his installation.

In total, his company "Comment ça vrac" offers more than a hundred products in the capital of Flanders and its outskirts.

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At the beginning, Karim and Kévin, the co-founders of the grocery store, crisscrossed Lille together on their bikes.

But with the coronavirus, demand has "skyrocketed".

"The two of us weren't doing it anymore," says Kevin.

"We had to recruit about four to five people in two weeks," he continues.

"This is not a fad, it will continue"

In one year in the Lille metropolitan area, the number of cyclo-entrepreneurs has increased by nearly 30%.

And this will become more pronounced, according to Yannick Paillard, president of the Droit au Vélo association in Lille: "Cycling entrepreneurs will settle in cities other than Lille. The machine is on," he promises, before ensuring: "It is not a fad, it will continue and it will be gone for quite a few years."

Especially since 100 million euros will be invested by the European metropolis of Lille for the new bicycle plan, three times more than during the previous mandate.

Objective: to quadruple the share of cycling in travel.