After the death of a cyclist in Paris, the question of road violence emerges in public debate

“Stop motorized violence”. This is the name of the call for testimony launched by the French Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB) following the death of Paul Varry, a 27-year-old cyclist who was crushed on October 15 in Paris, voluntarily, according to the first elements of the investigation, by a driver who was traveling in an SUV on the cycle lane.

This drama brought to light the theme of “motorized violence” in a public debate on mobility hitherto dominated by the question of developments or ecology. Co-president of the FUB, whose call for testimonies on the violence experienced by cyclists on the road received 818 contributions in two days, Olivier Schneider himself seems surprised by the scale of the phenomenon. “We have been advocating measures to limit road insecurity for a long time, but have never targeted intentional violence until now”he says.

Public authorities have also begun to measure the extent of the issue, which goes beyond the traditional injunction to “share the road”. On October 21, cycling associations were received by the Minister Delegate for Transport, François Durovray, who was eagerly awaited on the subject after taking four days to react to the death of Paul Varry. He announced to them a “mission against road violence”entrusted to a “qualified personality”.

It has become a cliché: the sharing of roads, in saturated cities, generates conflicts between more and more numerous cyclists, pedestrians whose protected spaces are sometimes sacrificed to cycling projects, and motorists who, for some, have struggling to accept losing the monopoly on the roadway. But beyond everyone's frustrations, the results of road safety, year after year, are relentless: it is, in the vast majority of cases, the cars – and their drivers – who kill.

Incomplete awareness work

“In 2023, 221 cyclists were killedcounted the National Interministerial Observatory for Road Safety, (…) up +18% compared to 2019.” Among pedestrians, there will be 438 deaths during an accident with a third party in 2023, a decrease of 10% compared to 2019. And when pedestrians or cyclists die in an accident with a third party, in 72% of cases, this third party drives a car or utility vehicle.

This increase in the number of victims is – in part at least – the corollary of the impressive growth in the use of bicycles, the use of which jumped by 20% between 2020 and 2021, according to the National Frequency Platform. An increase encouraged by the State, with an ecological objective. Elisabeth Borne launched in 2018, when she was minister responsible for transport, a Vélo plan, allocated 465 million euros over four years. This plan was amplified upon his arrival at Matignon with, this time, the promise of 1.25 billion euros between 2023 and 2028.

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