Paris becomes first European city to ban electric scooter rentals
Paris has become the first city in Europe to ban the rental of electric scooters. The scooters have been removed from the streets of the capital city following the implementation of the ban. As of today, it is no longer possible to rent these electric vehicles in the French capital. However, owners of personal scooters will still be able to use them.
The three private operators in Paris that offered electric scooters for rent have complied with the municipal decision to remove them from the streets of the capital.
"30% of the scooter fleet will be redistributed to markets in the Paris region, and the rest, after being repaired, will go to Germany and Poland," said Benjamin Guerpillon, director of a transportation company.
The rest of the vehicles, after a thorough inspection, will be shipped to Lille, Copenhagen, London, Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Brussels, or Berlin, where they will complement existing fleets.
The decision was made because Parisians are unhappy with the presence of electric scooters in the city due to unsafe driving and the fact that they are often left carelessly in undesignated parking areas.
Nearly 90% of the city's residents voted in a referendum held in April in favour of banning rental scooters, although they were also in favour of removing personal scooters from the equation.
"For me, it would be great if we could choose, but Parisians voted for the withdrawal of scooters, so that's it! We have to be fair," emphasised Niasse Sévigné, a coordinator.
"We'll have to take the metro or the bike. I'm not a fan of bikes," says a resident of Paris.
Last year, over 400,000 Parisians chose to travel by electric scooter, a business that brought in over one million euros in municipal revenue. In 2018, the Paris City Hall was among the first in Europe to implement this mode of transportation. Five years later, it is withdrawn.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
