Cyclists across France gathered on Saturday afternoon to demand an end to “motorized violence”, a few days after the death of a 27-year-old cyclist in Paris, and to demand measures to pacify cohabitation in the streets. between cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.
In Paris, nearly a thousand participants according to the Prefecture, many who came by bike, gathered, some angry, others very sad, under the slogans “less speed, more tenderness”, “walk or pedal, for peaceful streets”, “stop motorized violence”.
“At some point, you have to calm down, the road belongs to no one and everyone,” Véronique, who did not wish to specify her last name, told AFP. “It could have been me, a car is a weapon,” said this thirty-year-old, who travels around Paris every day on an electric bike for her concierge company, La fille à vélo.
“Motorized violence kills. We want the public authorities to really take up the subject,” demanded Anne Monmarché, president of the Paris en Selle association, which campaigns to improve cycling conditions.
She will be part of a delegation which will be received Monday afternoon by the Minister of Transport François Durovray.
“The idea is to listen to the proposals of the associative actors representing cyclists with respect, in order to co-construct future policies together,” his office told AFP.
– “Gentleness and pedagogy” –
Paul Varry, 27, died on the public highway on Tuesday, run over by a motorist with whom he had just had a dispute, on Boulevard Malesherbes, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
The driver, a 52-year-old technical salesman, was indicted for murder and imprisoned.
The emotion in the Parisian gathering was all the stronger as the victim was an “active member” of the Paris en Selle association and did not “spare his time to explain with gentleness and pedagogy why more security was needed in the road improvements for cyclists”, indicated Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris Center, present at the demonstration.
After a minute of silence at 5:45 p.m., the time when the tragedy took place, followed by a long round of applause, the victim’s mother said she was “in shock” and asked that the author of the done or “punished”.
Gatherings took place at the same time in front of the town halls of many other cities, at the call in particular of the French Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB) and the association Better Travel by Bicycle.
Paul Varry, “he’s a bit of a martyr for our cause”, commented Aude Fouchet, 52, present at the rally organized at Place du Capitole, in Toulouse.
– “Assassination for bodywork” –
In Nantes, around 300 people participated in the minute of silence.
“It’s an assassination for bodywork. We’re talking about it today, fortunately, but because it was in the middle of Paris. In the countryside for example there are many facts which remain invisible”, lamented Arthur Desmidt , 29 years old.
The majority of the 226 cyclists who died on the roads of France in 2023 were located in rural or peri-urban areas.
“We must stop considering the car as an extension of ourselves and overvaluing it in everyday life,” argued Barbara Delattre, high school teacher and member of the Nice à vélo association, a city where nearly a hundred of people observed a minute of silence.
Many like Nicole Penot, president of Cadr67 in Strasbourg, denounced “the daily altercations” on the road. According to her, “we need to review the way we share public space”.
In Amiens (Somme), where a cyclist was crushed to death by a garbage collection truck in January, 150 cyclists gathered, and 200 in Bordeaux, where the Vélo-Cité association highlights the word “cyclicide”, three cyclists killed last year.
“We still have a lot of waiting both on infrastructure but also on prevention and repression,” argued Paul Moutier, president of Veloxygen in Amiens.
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