The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, does not hide her rejection of these free access devices, the appearance of which in 2019 caused a small mess in the streets of the capital. Florence Piot / stock.adobe.com
Parisians registered on the electoral lists are called upon to vote on the ban on self-service scooters on April 2.
The future of self-service scooters in the streets of Paris is suspended until a local referendum on April 2. To ban or not to ban, this is the question that Parisians registered on the electoral lists will have to answer. Before the deadline, negotiations are going well. The two camps of pro and anti scooters compete with arguments and more or less recommendable maneuvers. Like the operator Lime, which offers 10 minutes of travel to each customer registered on the electoral lists before March 3, so as to be able to participate in the vote.
The Californian start-up specializing infreefloating” sent an e-mail to all its Parisian customers. She presents them with the procedure to follow in order to be able to vote on April 2. “Registering to vote may seem tedious, but it’s actually very easy. Here’s what to dothe email reads, before their offer is mentioned. But this approach annoyed the town hall of Paris: the Parisian deputy for Transport, David Belliard, estimated, in a tweet, that “propose to buy voters, it is frankly not pretty, pretty“.
“Duty of citizenship”
The operator believes for its part that the approach is completely legal. Lime is not the only operator to have encouraged its customers to register on the electoral lists. Dott also sent a notification titled “Register on the electoral lists“. “It takes less than 10 minutes, how nice we are: we offer you 15”, specifies the Franco-Dutch company, which adds that it is in no way a consideration. “We have always offered routes for people to vote, without of course ever communicating voting instructions.defends a spokesperson for Dott. We consider this to be part of our civic duty.” Two 15-minute journeys were thus offered by Dott on the Sundays of the legislative, municipal or even presidential elections.
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Still, this time, the context is not the same since the sustainability of their business in the capital depends on this election. “The town hall of Paris is judge and part of the vote”, Dott’s frame creaks. The Parisian executive has indeed decided on the holding of the ballot and has set the conditions according to its wishes, without concealing its total opposition to the presence of free access scooters.
A fine connoisseur of the affair which has pitted elected Parisians against operators of “freefloating” acknowledges that corporate maneuvering is “a little bit big“. But he also points to those employed by the town hall of Paris. “Electronic voting, already used for other polls in the capital, was not retained by the town hall for this vote, but we know that this type of poll encourages the participation of young people, who are more favorable to self-service scooters.“, underlines this source. Verdict on April 2.