What is a rural road? If we start this article with this little question, it is because the definition is at the heart of the debate in the beautiful countryside of our country. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, a large part of France has chosen to reinvest in nature to practice a whole host of activities. Some will walk, others run, cycle or gallop on horseback, hair blowing in the wind.
Cohabitation is already not always simple, but which can be spiced up when we add a little “vroom, vroom”. Because in the countryside, there are also plenty of people who love mechanics: quads, motocross or even the good old 4×4 that goes everywhere. And there, you can imagine that this could be a problem. When a Range Rover weighing just over two tonnes passes the Forez Retirees' Association on Nordic walking, it's pretty easy to guess who's going to pull over to the side. And this is undoubtedly why mayors try to legislate by prohibiting motorized vehicles from accessing their paths. But do they have the right? This is where the definition of the rural road comes into play.
A real “legal maze”
French law specifies that a rural road is a road “belonging to the municipalities, assigned to public use, which has not been classified as a municipal road. It is part of the private domain of the municipality.” It is therefore up to the mayor and his municipal council to legislate on its use, which is by default very broad. “Concretely, it is a question of knowing who it belongs to, who can use it, who must maintain it, and whether access can be prohibited,” notes the Chamber of Notaries of Gironde, which mentions “a legal maze”.
Over the years, many mayors have prohibited access to their rural roads to motorized vehicles, to the great dismay of certain enthusiasts. But that was before. Tired of being constantly chased away, motorsport enthusiasts have organized their response, challenging the orders they consider abusive in court. “The law gives us the right to travel there, so we just want to make our rights heard. For quads, for motorcycles, but also for riders or mountain bikers,” explains Charles Peot, director of the Green Leisure defense collective (Codever).
“We had just repaired the holes”
In September, three municipalities in Saône-et-Loire were condemned by the administrative court for prohibiting the passage of a quad hike. “From the start, we were told 'we don't want quads in our house'. It’s shocking and that’s what we’re fighting for,” argues Charles Peot, who initiated the procedure. Very bitter since his conviction, the mayor of Grevilly Patrice Raguet – one of the three municipalities concerned – regrets that his arguments were not heard. “They were taking a fragile country road, which is difficult to maintain. We had just repaired the holes with residents. We didn't want to redo everything for the pleasure of a few people,” says the mayor of this tiny town of 30 inhabitants. The hike finally passed and caused no damage, assures the mayor.
These bans are not new. In 2012, the town hall of Huilly-sur-Seille, still in Saône-et-Loire, had already banned access to some of its paths for quads, 4x4s and motorcycles. Pattern ? The paths in question were regularly “degraded” by motorized vehicles. Justice had said nothing. “I recognize that the subject is extremely complicated from a legal point of view, especially since hundreds of thousands of kilometers of rural roads have disappeared since the 1960s. We fully understand that certain places are fragile. But in this case, we wonder why the tractors always go there,” argues Charles Peot.
“There is a minority of imbeciles who do anything”
This expert on the subject is especially annoyed that the passion for motor sports practiced in nature is not recognized. Let it even be denigrated. “We are tired of being singled out. It's so easy to blame 4x4s. Motorized hiking suffers from a bad image because there is a minority of imbeciles who do anything.” The director of Codever easily recognizes that certain motocross or quad riders can endanger walkers or cyclists. “But very often, these are non-approved machines (see box). They generate nuisance because they respect nothing. But there’s no point in banning their movement since they already don’t have the right to be there.”
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Faced with this dangerous behavior, mayors can do nothing other than alert the police or install a few barriers forcing users to slow down. “We sometimes have motocross riders, it’s a horror. The noise, the danger, it's complicated to manage. Walkers don't understand why they see such powerful machines landing on the paths. Hiking is about enjoying nature, not disfiguring it,” argues the mayor of Grevilly.
A law to make a huge inventory?
If on the road, it is the car that is often king, in the countryside, it is more the walker who dominates. As on asphalt, sharing prevails. Not easy. A glimmer of hope in the middle of this big mess? Since the law of February 21, 2022, municipal councils can, by deliberation, decide to take a census of rural roads located on their land. The time for inventory has come.
