Scooters: Clément Beaune supports regulation, not banning

While the Paris City Hall has clearly taken a stand against dockless electric scooters, Clément Beaune clarified the government’s position on this contentious issue.

Just a few weeks before the vote on whether to maintain or not the dockless electric scooters in the capital, Clément Beaune, the Minister Delegate for Transport, joins the debate and criticizes Anne Hidalgo’s position in an interview with Le JDD. He believes that an outright ban would be “an admission of failure” for the socialist mayor. “Anne Hidalgo wants to ban scooters without taking responsibility, so she is organizing a referendum without a campaign and without allowing opposing opinions to be expressed,” he stated. “I will vote both as a citizen and as a Parisian elected official. You understand which way I lean.”

Clément Beaune for a “strengthened national framework” on scooters

Although he does not support a complete ban, the minister acknowledges that dockless scooters pose a number of problems. However, these are not insurmountable, as demonstrated by the example of Lyon. Clément Beaune favors the implementation of a “strengthened national framework” that would still give municipalities the authority to have the final say. For instance, he wants the minimum age, currently set at 12, to be raised to 16. The minister also advocates for the creation of mandatory parking zones and wishes to introduce a visible identification number on each scooter to facilitate control operations.

Regarding helmet use, the government does not currently support making it mandatory. According to Clément Beaune, enforcing such a rule would be impossible anyway, because the number of individuals to monitor would be too large. “If you do it for scooters, consistency requires doing it for bicycles”, he justified further.

Also read: Electric scooters in Bordeaux: who rides them and how?