Aurélien Fleurot // Photo credit: Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 7:53 a.m., February 6, 2024
Differentiated parking for heavy cars is now! Parisians voted this Sunday for a higher parking price for cars weighing more than 1.6 tonnes. But several associations intend to have this weekend's vote invalidated.
Parisians have spoken: this Sunday, the 5% of voters who went to the polls voted in majority to triple the price of parking for heavy vehicles. If SUVs are particularly targeted, all thermal or hybrid cars weighing more than 1.6 tonnes will have to pay these new rates.
If the subject will be on the agenda of the Paris Council next May with the objective of applying it from September 1, several associations will try to invalidate Sunday's vote. First angle of attack, the very nature of the ballot. For opponents of the SUV tax, this is not a “citizen consultation” but a disguised local referendum. And there, half of the voters would have to participate in the ballot.
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Only a third of Parisians have a car
Another angle of attack: the very definition of the term SUV used by the Paris town hall, misleading according to Nathalie Troussard, general secretary of the Drivers' Defense League, who is now waiting until next May. “There is a presentation in fact which induces the very idea that the SUV pollutes, that it is not good. And therefore, the deliberation of the Council of Paris has a regulatory character and therefore it is perfectly open to attack because we already has several arguments of form and substance", she judges at the microphone of Europe 1.
Another point raised by opponents, such as the Mobilians organization: changing parking prices must be the responsibility of the Paris Council and not a citizen consultation. Opponents who are also surprised that such a question is only asked of Parisians, only a third of whom own a car, compared to twice as many on the other side of the ring road.