Remember in September 2020, we had just come out of a long confinement before going through two more, following what was the biggest pandemic in history. Bigger, because it affected the entire world and brought the global economy to its knees, forcing governments to find solutions to keep countries economically afloat. Solutions being the generic word for “money”.
At the end of the crisis, soft mobility, including cycling, exploded. No one wanted to end up crammed into a wagon traveling at 75 km/h in underground tunnels. The hero of the story was the bicycle. A general euphoria which pushed for the creation of temporary cycle paths, the establishment of financing and above all, made the implementation of a Cycling Plan, proposed in September 2028 by Élisabeth Borne, very concrete. A plan which aimed to increase the share of travel by bicycle from 3% to 9%.
And for good reason, the climate is changing faster than expected, and not in a good way. We must therefore limit the release of CO2 and this involves the car, the devil’s vehicle, which allows people to get to work to allow the country’s economy to develop. It’s not as if eliminating the majority of travel for tertiary sector activities was possible thanks to the internet. But let’s not get lost.
Because casually, the basic idea is far from being bad. The damage caused by climatic conditions is colossal. Hurricane Kirk has just damaged the entire southwest of France. The torrential rains which have been falling for two days have ruined a large part of the crops. So in idea, encouraging cycling (and soft mobility) has a triple positive effect (at least, on paper): developing local economies, improving the health of the French (effectively reducing Social Security spending) and reduce CO2 emissions. But who says democratization of cycling, says creation of infrastructure. And that’s not free.
The Cycling Plan represented an envelope of 2 billion euros over 4 years, from 2023 to 2027. A sum intended to
– Create 100,000 km of cycle paths by 2030.
– Develop secure parking lots in urban areas (particularly near stations).
– Subsidize the purchase of electrically assisted bicycles and cargo bikes
Obviously, the expense is reassessed every year. Moreover, funding for projects submitted by the 400 communities this year has been frozen.
But in the meantime, things got complicated. The new government and in particular Prime Minister Michel Barnier are off to harvest money. And obviously, spending a billion to motivate the French to cycle is not really compatible with this desire to save money.
This is what scares Franck Leroy, president of the Transport Infrastructure Financing Agency in France. He declared last September that the envelope would be revised downwards, and that the 1.25 billion planned to increase cycling infrastructure would have difficulty reaching the billion. It seems that it is worse than expected with the possible total elimination of the bicycle budget for 2025.
The Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB) is obviously in panic, because it is directly concerned. But ultimately we all are. Because this backpedaling sends a very bad message:
– Why should the French make an effort when the government puts ecology after the economy?
– How to motivate the French to change their lifestyle? How can we continue to raise awareness about the climate?
– But above all, how can we justify the ZFEs, the bans on the circulation of older cars (with a car fleet whose age continues to grow, the fault of an acquisition cost that is too high and political choices that are struggling to be implemented? justify) and all these coercive rules when the ordering party does not submit to them himself?
It is this Thursday, October 10 that the finance bill for 2025 is presented. We must hope that the bicycle plan is retained, otherwise, the government would officially admit that improving the climate is ultimately not a priority . It will then be very difficult to get the French to accept efforts under an ecological pretext.
