Thibaud Hue edited by Solène Delinger 9:17 p.m., September 19, 2021

By bike, on foot, on a scooter, on rollerblades ... but above all, not by car!

This Sunday, September 19, the city of Paris organized for the seventh consecutive year a car-free day, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

With one objective: to prepare Parisians for the implementation of the limited traffic zone, scheduled for the second half of 2022. 

REPORTING

No more horn or engine noise.

The streets of Paris had rarely been so silent on this Sunday, September 19, a car-free day in the capital.

Set up by Anne Hidalgo during her previous term as mayor, seven years ago, this initiative aims to make public space more breathable and pleasant.

And, it had a special flavor this year, just a few months before the implementation of the limited traffic zone, scheduled for the second half of 2022. 

Improve air quality and reduce noise

If this day was symbolic, David Belliard, transport assistant for the city of Paris, wishes to go even further.

"Our ambition, in fact, to drastically reduce car traffic by eliminating what is called transit traffic which will affect the center of Paris," he explains at the microphone of Thibaud Hue for Europe 1. " We have given ourselves until 2022 to set up this ambitious limited traffic zone, to improve air quality, to reduce noise and to appease Paris in its entirety ".

A measure to support the 30km / h limitation in the capital, implemented since September 1 and which is already making motorists cringe. 

A measure that divides Parisians

"It is systematically against the car. It is a deprivation of liberty", indignant one of them at the microphone of Thibaud Hue. "Paris is completely disfigured by the plots installed by the town hall of Paris for cyclists". Pedestrians and cyclists, on the other hand, were delighted: "We find that Paris is very calm without cars", explains a cyclist. "We are not afraid of being run over on every street corner without the scooters that run on the cycle lanes." This day may even have changed the opinion of some resistant to change in the capital. "I have a car and there I would have gone to the cinema with it. It forces me to take the metro, it's just as well," says a motorist. Bet therefore almost taken up for Anne Hidalgo.