Parisians vote against rental e-scooters

The city of Paris has asked its citizens to vote on the proposed ban on electric rental scooters in the city – with a clear result: 89 per cent of those who voted were in favour of banning rental scooters from the streets of the French capital.

It is important to note that less than ten per cent of those eligible to vote (around 103,000 out of almost 1.4 million) actually took part in the vote. While this number would ordinarily be insufficient to allow for such a decision, the city council had already considered not renewing the permits at the end of 2022, which expire in March 2023, due to safety concerns.

Although the end of the first quarter was not the end of the road, the e-scooters of the sharing providers will not be around for much longer in the French capital: Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that she would follow the vote – from 1 September 2023, there will no longer be any e-scooters for rent in Paris. The three providers Lime, Tier and Dott will therefore have to withdraw their vehicles from Paris by the end of August. However, the vote only affects the sharing vehicles of the commercial providers; private e-trekkers may continue to be used.

Merci au plus de 100 000 Parisiens qui se sont exprimés, c’est une belle victoire de la démocratie locale. Une fois de plus, Paris a su innover !

Les Parisiens se sont massivement prononcés contre les trottinettes en libre-service, nous y mettrons fin d'ici le 1er septembre. pic.twitter.com/2YTy1YGDdj

— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) April 2, 2023

The operators’ efforts to obtain a further extension of the licences by making improvements have thus failed. Even with the strict requirements in Paris (among other things, a speed limit has been in effect since the end of 2021), the vehicles apparently could not win approval among the residents.

reuters.com, paris.fr (in French)