Paris is holding a referendum on Sunday to decide whether to ban electric scooter rentals in the French capital.
Paris is holding a referendum on Sunday to decide whether to ban electric scooter rentals in the French capital.
Three rental companies currently own around 15,000 electric scooters in Paris.
The irresponsible use of electric scooters and frequent accidents, as well as the chaos caused by abandoned scooters on pedestrian sidewalks, have led to calls to ban electric scooter rentals.
Operating licenses for rental companies expire at the end of August.
A spokesman for the city’s government said Paris would consider the referendum result binding, regardless of voter turnout.
The mayor of Paris, Anna Hidalgo, who proposed to decide the issue in a referendum, supports the ban on the rental of electric scooters. She claimed that electric scooters are not environmentally friendly and that the employees of the rental companies are not sufficiently protected.
The possible ban would only apply to the rental of electric scooters and would not affect privately owned scooters.
