That is a clear result and will lead to an abolishment of the electric two-wheelers on the streets. The three remaining sharing providers Dott, Lime and TIER have been busy proclaiming that e-scooter sharing is a useful means of transportation in the French capital. The result however will make them remove their 15,000 vehicles from the streets of Paris. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo is expected to make that call now that the voters have spoken.

The French love owning their e-scooters, last year more than 700,000 vehicles were purchased with the difference that these vehicles don’t block the pavements or are not thrown into the river Seine, as their owners look after them, once the ride is finished.

Is this vote in France a sign for other cities to follow?

Well, in my opinion the focus of media and political decision makers might now switch from sharing e-scooters to looking after the owners of e-scooters. Most negative attributes the sharing providers have been dealing with in the past years are no longer valid for these privately owned vehicles. And with that re-focussing, we might actually start talking about and assessing the real value of micromobility vehicles: it is about the replacement of car trips in cities. And with this in mind, the vote in Paris might have started a real positive trend for our urban mobility situation.

Read more about the background of French E-Scooter sharing in our post here.

Images courtesy of Michael Brecht

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