Romain Rouillard 16:28 pm, April 03, 2023

This Sunday, in a vote with a very low turnout (just over 7%), Parisians voted 89% in favor of banning self-service electric scooters. Nevertheless, these controversial machines will not immediately disappear from the urban landscape of the capital. Explanations.

The fate of self-service electric scooters in Paris is now recorded. After a vote of the inhabitants largely in favor of their ban (89%), these motorized vehicles will gradually leave the asphalt of the capital, the first in Europe to put an end to this service. However, for contractual reasons, it is impossible for the mayor of Paris to apply this ban now.

The City has signed a contract with the three private operators who offer these scooters for rent. Lime, Dott and Tier pay some 930,000 euros each year to benefit from a city right in the capital. A contract that expires on August 31 and that the Parisian municipality intends to respect. Therefore, it will be necessary to wait until September 1 - and the non-renewal of this contract - to see these self-service scooters disappear permanently.

The mayor of Paris had spoken in favor of the ban

"On September 1, there will be no more self-service scooters in Paris," confirmed the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, when unveiling the results of the consultation. The mayor had also been very firmly opposed to the maintenance of these devices in the capital in an interview with Le Parisienon January 14. "That Parisians have their own scooter, no worries. But we have a real problem with free floating. It's not green," she said when announcing the organization of the vote held on Sunday.

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An election marked by a very low turnout (just over 7%) but that Anne Hidalgo has promised to "respect". Regular users of these two-wheelers still have five months to enjoy them. "Either I'll take my car back but for ecology it's not great, or I'll buy a scooter," one of them told Europe 1 on Monday. A solution already massively adopted in France since, according to figures from the Federation of Micro-Mobility Professionals (FP2M), reported by BFM Business, 759,000 scooters were sold in France in 2022, three times more than in 2019.