“Paris town hall caught in the act of stealing bicycles,” denounces an Internet user on his X account. This accusation follows a video taken Thursday, November 7 in the 14th arrondissement of the capital. In this short sequence, two municipal agents, grinders in hand, release bicycles from their locks before bringing them back near their van and then placing them in the dumpster located at the rear of the vehicle.
“The first bike brought to the van is in poor condition (flat tires) but all the others that are brought to the van are in excellent condition. So they took one bike in poor condition and eight others in working order,” assures the person who posted the video. Is this scene, filmed around 4 p.m. in Rue Gassendi, really what it appears to be?
The municipality was quick to pin this post in order to reestablish the truth. “This is obviously not a theft. These accusations are serious and directly harm the image of our agents,” first denounced the City of Paris before giving an explanation for this operation. “These bikes have been reported as wrecks on several occasions and the services simply did their job,” justifies the town hall, specifying that it has investigated the said video.
Indeed, after the conclusion of a “common action protocol between the municipal cleanliness services and the police headquarters”, rounds of removal of wrecked bicycles and motorized two-wheelers take place twice a month in each of the districts of Paris. Nearly 3,000 abandoned bicycles are removed from the capital's sidewalks each year.
Concerning bicycles abandoned on public roads, “deemed irreparable” and whose owner cannot be identified, they are automatically characterized as wreckage by police officers. “What remains of the bike then becomes waste and can be collected by the cleaning services. The bicycle wrecks are then sent to a recycling center, then to traditional metal recycling channels,” describes the municipality on its website.
If the abandoned bike is “in the process of being destroyed”, a sticker alerts its owner that if he does not recover his bike within two to three weeks, the two-wheeler will suffer the same fate. Finally, for a bicycle parked in the same place for a long time but whose owner is identifiable thanks to a “FUBICY” code or a license plate, it is considered by the wrecker to be in the process of being abandoned. “The police will contact the owner to ask them to move their bike,” indicates the town hall. If the owner of the two-wheeler does not come forward or does not move his bike, the police impound it.
