Parisians have overwhelmingly voted to banish the French capital’s ubiquitous for-hire electric scooters from their streets.
The 15,000 opinion-dividing mini-machines are now expected to vanish from central Paris at the end of August when the city’s contracts with the three operators expire.
The question City Hall asked voters in a citywide mini-referendum on Sunday was: “For or against self-service scooters in Paris?”
The result wasn’t close. City Hall said just over 103,000 people voted, with 89% rejecting e-scooters and just 11% supporting them.
“There will no longer be any self-service scooters in Paris from September 1st,” she said.
The vote had been open to all of Paris’ 1.38 million registered voters, but the low turnout — just 7.4% of those registered — has been criticized by the scooter companies.
“This unprecedented referendum … was heavily impacted by very restrictive voting methods. This led to an extremely low turnout, heavily skewed towards older age groups, which has widened the gap between pros and cons,” said a joint statement from Lime, Dott and Tier.