Paris’s socialist mayor backs call to ban SUVs from city after cyclist, 27, was run down and killed in Mercedes road rage attack

By MIRIAM KUEPPER

Published: 16:56 GMT, 25 November 2024 | Updated: 16:57 GMT, 25 November 2024

Paris might soon ban SUVs in the city as the mayor warned they could become ‘weapons’ against other citizens following the death of a cyclist who was run down and killed in a road rage attack. 

The ban was proposed by communist senator Ian Brossat earlier this month, who said there needed to be a ‘wake-up call’ to the road violence in the streets of Paris. 

Brossat’s proposal has now gained support from Paris’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, according to the Telegraph. 

The city council doesn’t currently have the power to introduce the ban, but Hidalgo urged the government of Emmanuel Macron to grant the council the power to do so.

The proposed ban comes after cyclist Paul Varry, 27, died after he was hit by a sports utility vehicle (SUV) in the city centre of Paris in October following an alleged road rage incident. His death sparked renewed outrage over road violence.

The driver of the Mercedes who hit Varry has since been charged with murder.

‘Paul was murdered. The car kills, it is a weapon when used in this way,’ Hidalgo said following a minute of silence held by council members last week.

SUVs, which every fourth motorist in Paris is driving, reportedly account for 10 per cent more accidents than other cars in Paris and were statistically more fatal for the victims they hit. 

Paris might soon ban SUVs in the city as the mayor warned they could become ‘weapons’ against other citizens

The proposed ban comes after cyclist Paul Varry, 27, died after he was hit by a sports utility vehicle (SUV) in the city centre of Paris in October following an alleged road rage incident

A month after the death of Paul Varry, a Parisian cyclist killed by a motorist, the Paris Council paid tribute to him, with a minute of silence after a speech by the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. November 19, 2024

‘Motorists kill,’ Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, the Green mayor of the 12th arrondissement, said. 

Pierre-Marie herself was involved in a road violence incident last year when she was attacked by a motorcyclist while riding her bike in summer 2023.

‘The public space has become the daily theatre of this danger exacerbated by increasingly massive motorised vehicles,’ Pierre-Marie told the Telegraph.

She added that more has to be done to protect local residents. 

But the opposition was quick to blame the escalating road violence in Paris on Hidalgo’s urban planning.

Republican councillor Aurelie Pirillo said that the city of Paris had to shoulder some blame for these ‘serious accidents’.

She said it ‘has become anarchy’ in the city as a result of Hidalgo’s ‘chaotic management of mobility’. 

A demonstrator holds a sign reading ‘Stop motorised violence’ during a gathering at the Place de La Republique in Paris, France, on October 19, 2024, to pay tribute to Paul, a 27-year-old cyclist who dies after he is run over by a car earlier in the week

SUVs, which every fourth motorist in Paris is driving, reportedly account for 10 per cent more accidents than other cars in Paris and were statistically more fatal for the victims they hit

A second Republican councillor, David Alphand, added that Hidalgo was ‘exploiting’ Varry’s death in the alleged road rage incident to further her ‘political agenda’. 

The proposed SUV ban is the latest initiative in Hidalgo’s decade-long road safety campaign, which has been branded her ‘war on motorists’.

She has already targeted SUVs earlier this year, with increased parking prices for those driving SUVs in Paris. 

Hidalgo has also introduced a ban on all vehicles driving through 1.8 square miles of central Paris, with an exception for drivers who had specific business there. 

:
Paris’s socialist mayor backs call to ban SUVs from city after cyclist, 27, was run down and killed in Mercedes road rage attack

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk