Paris Becomes the First European Capital to Ban Rented Electric Scooters

As Paris was banning e-scooters, European cities of comparable dimension, like Berlin, threw their weight behind the gadgets. Berlin has 5 scooter operators and 40,000 registered e-scooters zooming throughout town. “There’s always more,” the Berliner Zeitung, a neighborhood news outlet, just lately commented.

The vote in Paris initially resonated in different French cities at a time when many had been questioning how tightly to manage the gadgets. Just after the vote, officers in Marseille, France’s second-largest metropolis, mentioned they had been contemplating an identical vote. Ultimately, they dropped the concept, leaving Paris an outlier.

“Paris has an exceptional public transport system and plenty of bike lanes,” mentioned Audrey Gatian, the deputy mayor for transportation in Marseille. “The situation is different here.” In Marseille, she believes, e-scooters play an important function in correcting the uneven distribution of public transport and in reducing the reliance on automobiles.

Lime, the biggest scooter operator in Paris, mentioned it will not hearth anybody because of the ban. But Dott, the second-largest operator, mentioned it deliberate to fireplace 50 of its full-time staff and 50 of the seasonal staff it normally recruits when demand soars in summer time.

Dott mentioned it will attempt to provide its staff jobs in French cities like Lille, the place operations are increasing. “It is a painful process,” Mr. Gorse mentioned. But mentioned he was relieved that the City Hall and his firm now shared a single goal.

“Everyone agrees on ramping up the bike service, especially with the Paris Olympics next summer,” he mentioned.

Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.