Emmanuelle Ducros 8:56 a.m., February 5, 2024
Every morning after the 8:30 a.m. news, Emmanuelle Ducros reveals to listeners her “Journey into absurdity”, from Monday to Thursday.
Yesterday, Parisians were called to the polls for a vote, a ballot organized by Paris town hall. The question: “for or against the creation of a specific rate for the parking of heavy, bulky, polluting individual cars”.
Citizen vote imagined in the middle of Tahitigate, to try to create a diversion for the team of the Mayor of Paris under the coconut trees. This gave rise to this question of rare subtlety, which could be translated as “are you on the side of the good guys or on the side of the bad polluters with big rich cars”. The affair has become, in the town hall's opinion, a referendum “for or against SUVs”. AND so, yesterday, the threefold increase in the parking price of these SUVs was adopted by a narrow majority: 54.6% of the votes.
A victory for Anne Hidalgo.
Yes, if we consider it a victory that a vote supposed to bring together nice Parisians against big cars led only 5.68% of voters to the polls, or 78,000. The citizen vote cost 400,000 euros. Political diversion is expensive...
But can this vote be effective?
The mantra is “the bigger it is, the more it pollutes". But all that is very vague. Should be penalized: thermal or plug-in hybrid vehicles exceeding 1.6 tonnes, or 2 tonnes for an electric vehicle .
That does not mean “SUV” although it is this word that the town hall used to sell its vote, without being able to define it. The SUV, sport utility vehicle, is a marketing category that means nothing in terms of weight or power. Moreover, the best-selling SUV in France, the Peugeot 2008, weighs 1300 kg, less than the fateful 1600 kg. And then, also penalizing hybrid or electric vehicles makes no sense in the fight against pollution... There is a philosophical problem in this vote. The town hall was looking for an easy Turkish head, not efficiency. The goal was not less exhaust fumes, but more smoke to make people forget the wreck of its management.
Won't we see fewer big cars in Paris?
18 euros per hour of parking is dissuasive. But for whom? Not for residents who are not affected. Getting Parisians to vote by exempting them from possible constraints: we have rarely been more demagogic.
The Paris town hall is playing a little game of crap on the backs of suburbanites and provincials. They are the ones who will pay. All those who really need a family car for everyday use and who don't have the presence of mind to have a small one just for visiting the capital. Let them stay at home. Paris to Parisians.
Does this have a chance of being implemented one day?
We already feel that the hastily cobbled together thing is a source of endless dispute. Lawyers are looking into the matter, considering that it is the organization of a breach of equality. Motorist associations are attacking the administrative court, highlighting the insincerity of the vote and the biased speech of the town hall. Anne Hidalgo is not immune to a boomerang return