Controversy in Paris: A war on cars?

Paris, the City of Love, is reclaiming its streets from cars to create a more livable, eco-friendly environment. With the world watching during the Olympic Games, Mayor Anne Hidalgo is driving radical changes, reducing air pollution, and giving more space to people and nature. But not everyone agrees. Can Paris become a model for sustainable urban living, or will the resistance be too strong?

00:00 Paris: A ban on cars?
06:00 Place de la Bastille
09:00 Cycling in Paris
11.30 Driving in Paris
13:00 Major Anne Hidalgo
15:00 15 minute city
18:00 Paris Olympics 2024
21:00 Paris a role model city?

Report: Gerhard Sonnleitner
Camera: Mael Fuentes
Editing: Manu Reuss

► Liked the video? Let us know by giving us a thumbs up!
► Want to see more? Make sure to subscribe
► Check our website: https://dw.com/REV

REV – The Global Auto and Mobility Show from Deutsche Welle

#DW #DWREV #greencity

Paris – a city made with love for people. Long before cars changed the cityscape and threatened the character of the French capital. Hupen Autos!! Now Parisians are taking their city back. The world is watching Paris during the Olympic Games, and its people have tasked the energetic mayor – Anne Hidalgo – with making the city more livable. If we take space away from cars, we also reduce air pollution. Giving more space to nature, more space to people and less space to cars. But the attempt to ban cars from the city polarizes Parisians. Removing all cars from Paris is not the solution, it won’t work. This is outrageous and what’s happening in Paris is a joke. Of course you can have some resistance sometimes, with people who have their habits and they want to keep their habits. In the name of ecology, in the name of health, in the name of saving the planet, what we decide is what’s going to happen. Radical change is coming fast to Paris, usually adopted by referendums. Exceptional measures for exceptional situations. The planet is burning and we in Paris have decided not to stand idly by. They take those radical solutions. And then: we´ll see what happens? And the Summer Olympics are just around the corner. A global stage and the big test for sustainable Paris. Could it be a role model for other big cities? This is much more perpetuation. It is also a sign of this tension between: are we are a sustainable city or are we a touristic city.” Deputy Mayor Christophe Najdovski, who’s playing a leading role in the city’s ecological transformation, stretches his legs in the streets near city hall between two meetings. So here we are in Rue du Temple, which was formerly an ordinary street with cars parked and cars driving through the streets. And now it’s a pedestrian street with some vegetation that we put on it. So it’s a part of the transformations that we are trying to are to implement in Paris, giving more space to nature, more space to people and less space to cars. Paris is changing mobility with spectacular measures. The highway on the banks of the Seine has been transformed into a recreational area for pedestrians and cyclists. Rue de Rivoli, once one of the most important traffic routes, has been turned into a bicycle route with only one lane left for cars. At many traffic hubs such as the Place de la Bastille, cars have been sidelined and space made for people. And a 30 km/h speed limit applies throughout Paris. Exemplary measures, but they don’t please everyone. Lawyer Eric de Caumont is now focused on supporting the interests of motorists. What’s happening in Paris should be prevented in all other big European cities: A group of fanatics is trying to remove all cars, all motorcycles, all motorized vehicles from the city, to ban them in favor of “soft mobility” and turn the city into a museum where life is no longer permitted. Niklas Zaboji, the France correspondent for a major German newspaper, wants to find out whether mobility in Paris can be a role model for other major cities in Europe. Yes and no, rather not or not yet. Yes I mean, the vision is clear and the vision is, I would say, shared by the majority. But the problem is of course, when it comes to the details when it comes to the real technical questions. Didier Renoux rides his motorcycle from a Parisian suburb to work in the city center. Not only have parking spaces for cars been drastically reduced and parking fees increased. For the past year and a half, motorcycles with combustion engines have also had to pay 3 euros an hour to park. This infuriates Renoux. When you live 20 or 30 kilometers out of Paris, you have to use a personal vehicle because you don’t have public transportation useful to go to work. People living in Paris don’t need any vehicle because in Paris the public transport are OK. The problem is that 80 percent of people working in Paris, more than 80 percent of people working in Paris are living outside of Paris. And more and more Parisians are moving from the center to the suburbs. The rents in Paris, which have gone up last years – that has also increased the discussion about this whole transportation issue. Because you have less and less people who can afford to live in the city center, who don’t earn that much money. So you have have more and more people living outside but still work in the city center, so they need to go inside the city center. Let’s take a look around Place de la Bastille, a popular residential area in the center. I’m Parisian and I don’t have a car. In Paris, everyone who’s lucky enough to live here uses public transport. Nobody needs a car here. We were born in Paris, we’ve always lived here. And we think there are too many cars. We do everything on foot, we don’t need a car. The cars all come from outside. Only one in four Parisians has a car. We don’t like cars. There is now plenty of space for pedestrians and cyclists at Place de la Bastille, while cars have seen their territory reduced. The sustainable changes to the cityscape are being developed scientifically. APUR, the Parisian agency for urban development where experts plan the future, plays an important role in the process. Our task here is to analyze everything related to mobility: to observe it from all angles and come up with plans for action. Today, for example, only 9 percent of all journeys in Paris are made by car. And 61 percent of all journeys made are shorter than 1 kilometer. This makes it obvious that mobility by bicycle and on foot should be promoted more strongly. From science to everyday reality. Sara Bouadhm drives a cab in Paris for 10 hours a day. Traffic in Paris is a big problem. It’s getting worse and worse. There are too many cars, too many trucks, which is understandable because there is work to be done all over the city. Paris is a city where it’ll never be possible to eliminate cars. There are too many stores, too many workplaces. Banning all vehicles from the city is not a solution. And on her rides, more and more bikes get in her way. Sometimes I’m boxed in by 2 bikes, one on the left, one on the right… I’m afraid to hit them. If I want to avoid the one on the left, I get too close to the one on the right… and they come at warp speed and don’t obey the traffic rules. And sometimes they drive in our bus and cab lane and a lot of accidents happen there. I’ve seen terrible accidents. Nevertheless – cyclists are enjoying their new-found freedom on the streets of the French metropolis. Half of the road is now reserved for cyclists and no longer for cars. No one knows the cycle paths in Paris better than bicycle activist Altis. He keeps a close eye on changes that affect cyclists and documents them on social media. Here we are in Rue de Rivoli. You can see now: all of this place is for riding by bike. They started by adding this little lane an after they expanded to this place. ‘So now it is a very nice place to ride. The Place de la Republique is also a paradise for cyclists and pedestrians. On the former traffic circle, there is now only one lane at the edge left for cars. Alexandra Legendre works for a French automobile club, but in the center of Paris even she always walks. When you are pedestrian here, you have to deal with bikes, trotinettes , Deliveroos, Uber Bikes and you have to be very, very careful when you’re a pedestrian here. When you have a bicycle, you have the feeling that you are going to save the planet because you don’t have CO2 emissions. You don’t have particles and the problem is that you do whatever you want. Here I am a pedestrian and I had never been so much in danger as a pedestrian. Arnaud Passalacqua arrives here by bike, of course. As a professor of urban development at Gustav Eiffel University, he’s working on solutions for sustainable mobility in Paris. But he’s not yet satisfied. It is striking that the context of new mobilities which could be a way to be more peaceful, it is not exactly what is produced by this new frame. In fact, the new frame produces new violence… or a situation of disease between people walking and people biking and you’ve got also the violence against the bad car drivers or Moto drivers. And motorists’ tempers are also running high when Rue La Fayette, one of the most important thoroughfares, simply grinds to a halt at rush hour. Because bicycles have absolute priority here. We were elected for that because the mayor when she was elected, she said that she will pedestrianized streets, that she will give more space to bicycles and less space for cars. So we are just implementing the policy for what we were elected. People living in Paris voted for this decision. They didn’t ask people from outside Paris to vote. Anne Hidalgo is just the mayor of Paris, which is only 2 million inhabitants in an agglomeration of eleven or twelve. So there is a first problem, which is the governance of this agglomeration. The policy of mobility can only affect the territory of Paris. So there is this problem of governance, which is not solved. The Ile de France region, a conurbation of 10 million inhabitants that surrounds the city of Paris, is governed by a conservative party. Forward-looking transport projects like suburban railroad lines which would connect the region with the center of Paris, are not being implemented as quickly here as in the capital. That’s why people like Didier Renoux who live in the suburbs still depend on motorcycles. In the city of Paris, where only 2 million people live, the socialist Anne Hidalgo and her green coalition partners have given absolute priority to bicycles. This fuels heated debates. We should always look at an overall point of view and not just at the point of view of some individuals. In the name of ecology, in the name of health, in the name of saving the planet, what we decide is what’s going to happen. These politicians are completely out of touch, they’ve lost themselves in their doctrines, they’re terrible dogmatists… They demonize the majority of French people, the common and poor people, who don’t have the means to buy sustainable cars, and blame them for the destruction of the environment on this planet. And that’s shocking! Backed by a referendum, Anne Hidalgo also ensured that large cars such as SUVs will soon have to pay 18 euros per hour to park in the city center. A decision that’s causing additional tensions. She decided to have that symbolic fight: Anti SUV… and that’s something that creates – as we say in german – bad blood. SUVs versus bicycles – an ideologically heated discussion – but Arnaud Passalacqua doesn’t want to hear any more about it. The solutions to the problems of mobility are not to find in the mobility system. They are first to find in the way we have organized or we will organize the city, the jobs, the localization of jobs, the price of real estate. The first field of work is in these topics and not on mobility system themselves. And the goal of this policy would be to reduce the journey between work and homes. This is exactly what urban planner Carlos Moreno is already working on. Together with the city administration, he’s developed the “15-minute city” concept: Many mini centers are to be created in Paris, where people can reach everything they need to live within 15 minutes. We have identified 6 functions that make up the core of the “15-minute city”: living, working, shopping, education, medical care and recreation. And if you can reach all of this in a quarter of an hour by bike or on foot – i.e. without CO2 emissions – then we have happy citizens. Work on the visionary concept has already begun. For example, the streets around schools, which are an important part of a “15-minute city”, have been closed to traffic and converted into small parks. The 15 minutes city, which is a motto of Anne Hidalgo and Carlos Moreno in Paris. The problem is: it could be a very sustainable way of life, the 15 minute city. But how can we afford such a place with the high density, a lot of services with a lot of jobs, a lot of money too. The balance between what happens outside and what happens inside is not very satisfactory in my point of view. The 15 minutes city for some of the people is the one hour and 30 minutes city for other people, I would say. Urban planner Carlos Moreno is also in close contact with architect Philippe Chiambaretta. He has been commissioned by the City of Paris to give the Avenue de Champs Elysee – the historic axis between Place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe – a new look. Reducing the part of the car and getting this place accessible to people is one of our first actions. Of course we cannot completely ban cars. It is a big debate in Paris. I think we have to be careful and being a bit scientific about that and less ideological. So that’s very important. We want to be a very methodological and scientific and not fighting pro or against cars. Changing the city is not something you do overnight. Whether in its old or new incarnation, the Champs Elysee will probably always retain its reputation as the most popular shopping street in the world. My point of view is that Hidalgo´s policy is very ambivalent on the problem of the city as a touristic city, Paris as a touristic city. In fact reconstructing Champs Elysee as a touristic purpose – because it’s the most well-known street in Paris – but can we still have a very touristic city, if we look really in front of us the problem of airplanes and the emissions? Many tourists will also come to the Olympic Games, which will take place in Paris in the summer of 2024. Even the city’s bid promised “Environmentally friendly games in the heart of the city with an ecological mobility concept.” A wide range of adjustments have been implemented to make the Olympic Games sustainable. I guarantee you: The Olympics have helped us accelerate this city’s urgently needed transformation.. Without the Olympics we would need 20 years instead of just 10 to achieve this transformation, which is becoming increasingly necessary due to climate change. In order to connect the Olympic venues, a large-scale expansion of the public transport network was planned. But much of it is still a construction site. The prestigious “Grand Express” project, which will connect the center of Paris with the suburbs, will not be completed until 2030. You have the impression that the political ambition does not fit to the technical reality. So Paris unfortunately is not able to present this whole range of new lines, either Metro or trains. And that is really a stress test. The people of Paris are also looking ahead to a summer with the Olympic Games in the city with some trepidation. It probably will be a nightmare for any people having to go in Paris. Because it will be a very, very, very complicated to run in Paris. And if you use the metro you can see big ads asking people to stay home to work or just to leave Paris. We don’t even feel welcome anymore in Paris. Even if we live in Paris For the duration of the Olympics, the price of metro tickets has been almost doubled to 4 euros – presumably to prevent overcrowding. Is this the new Parisian sustainability? We were opposed to that decision, that was made by the president of the region. And we disagree with that measure. This example makes clear, that there is a tension between the region, which is the decider for the price of tickets and the mayor of Paris. On this the question I don’t think that Paris is a model because we have a history of divided territories between the center and the suburbs. So is Paris not a role model for the future of mobility in metropolitan areas after all? Well, even if not everything goes smoothly and not everyone agrees, one thing is clear: The subject of mobility no longer leaves anyone in this city cold. It´s true- something is happening. I would say to have a vision is a good thing. This French way to have long-term objectives is a good thing. Ecology is far too important an issue on this planet to be left to the Green parties alone. We must ensure that everyone’s voice is heard on the subject of pollution and mobility and that party boundaries and doctrines are transcended. Can we live in the cities that were built in the twentieth century? Or do we need to adapt our cities to new twenty-first Century and to the challenges that we will face? It is probably possible in the future, but not right now. We have to change with a progression – not change brutally like they try to do in Paris. What we also ask is a better way to teach people how to live together, how to drive, how to use the bikes, the mopeds, whatever… And cities all over the world can learn something from this: In Paris, mobility has become an issue that’s being passionately discussed. And at some point, the right solutions will hopefuly be found. What do you think? Leave us a comment below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel!