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Limitation to 30 km / h: "Does the town hall of Paris want to eradicate the car?"

2021-07-12T15:13:18.976Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - The mayor of Paris has announced the generalization of the 30 km / h panel in the capital, from August 30. This decision still harms Parisian mobility and reveals a frenzied desire to suppress the automobile culture, believes the historian of mobility, Mathieu Flonneau.


Mathieu Flonneau (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, IAES-EDS) is a historian of mobility, the city and roads.

Author of books on the civilization of motoring, he will publish

En tous sens!

A history of road equipment

published by Loubatières.

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Permanently, in an accelerated manner and in all directions, the downgrading and archaization of the automobile are encouraged by the current Parisian municipality. Inscribed in "the sense of history", some recent measures from a practical activist kit still contribute, without ever tolerating contradiction, immediately accused of being conservative or even reactionary. You are asked to move around - but never again as you wish and above all not too quickly, which, let's face it, was already a concrete reality. It is understood, moreover, that climatic and health imperatives immediately end all debates, whereas the empirical solutions proposed would deserve a real globalization of controversies.

The Parisian moment is therefore undergoing a great change and perhaps some even dream of “big hinges” likely to make cars and their drivers disappear, or better, “evaporate”. This proposal for a radical solution has already been written… in 1977, in a collapsological fiction before the hour:

The apocalypse is for tomorrow

. "

Three days already. I had been driving for three days. I had left the Place de l'Alma on a Monday at 7 p.m., and it was Thursday noon. I could see the fires of the Place de la Concorde in the distance. If all went well, I would manage to be Place Saint-Michel the next day or two. But for the moment I was walking along the quays of the Seine. I had one eye on my steering wheel and the other on the large hinges. The large hinges allowed the wharf to pivot, causing miles of lines of vehicles to slide in the water in one fell swoop

”. Better known as an actor, Jean Yanne was the author of this creaking dystopia of black humor, the same color as the exhaust fumes of the time!

In terms of announcement effects, we are there almost half a century later and in the news of Parisian and Grand-Parisian mobility, it is prevailing - and everything, first and foremost, should be reinscribed in a table at the very least regional… - the simplicity of approximate and partisan stories in which the most virulent militants end up believing.

The narrative that has become dominant of the choice imposed on citizens by all-powerful lobbies does not hold up against a narrow look at the past of motoring, especially in the capital where it was born.

Mathieu Flonneau

The fact of insisting on the implacable existence of "a sense of history" would already deserve to be at least attentive to the unfolding of this same history about which opinions can, of course, always be issued but studies also exist. . In this area, the ideological reflex takes the place of compensation for the absence of real culture and real knowledge of the process of integrating the automobile into the city. The narrative that has become dominant of the choice imposed on citizens by all-powerful lobbies does not hold up against a narrow look at the past of motoring, especially in the capital where it was born. It was even desired for the various mobility solutions it provided. The pleasant fable of the promotional manipulation of the “all-automobile” pinned to thePompidolian scarecrow, although rich in slogans, is poor in arguments. Consider as an intruder at all times and in all places following a

opportunistic

reductio ad dieselum arises

from a rewriting of facts bordering on the squandering of heritage, or even of canceling ordinary culture that we often encounter in other fields where history and its uses are clearly falsified .

Nowadays, we maintain that to archaic from now on still the automobile movement “whatever it costs”, amounts to forgetting the co-construction of Parisian modernity, between the city and the automobile, source of wealth and of “public good. ". This enlightened modal choice, fortunately in addition to others and never in the majority, had been encouraged by former officials and elected officials who were no less concerned than those currently in charge claim to be - elected in total, must he recalled it, by 15% of the votes.

Charging motoring with all sins in the public space while civilized, it was also a provider of regulations, led to take the wrong path and create a form of anarchy. It is also neglecting the social, industrial and working-class culture which has carried this production that creates prosperity, clearly lacking a place of heritage exhibition and demonstration for an industrial sector of excellence turned towards the future. It is above all to deny by dint of vexatious measures the thickness of the automobile civilization and beyond the road ecosystem which can be read in the lineage of the reflection on the "social utilities" that the President of the Republic had outlined two years ago at the start of the health crisis. We know it,the fight is sometimes unequal between asserted conformist ideological certainties and patiently developed knowledge, and a certain ecology is moreover very selective as to noise pollution from traffic in view of its outstanding tolerance in the face of the great dynamism of "festive events" subsidized which residents are asked to put up with. Demagogic blindness will not remove the objective degradation of the quality of life in Paris that some well-measured cynicism and irony encourage against a background of Zadist aesthetics and the reign of sad passions. If the planned obsolescence and the abolition of individual freedom and privacy, which are inherent parts of automobile civilization, are truly desired by our concerned city officials,then it remains to be clearly validated in the ballot box with the citizens the financing of this model of society.

Do a thousand ideological symbols make a coherent policy?

Do we create for this a less anarchic city, more socially inclusive, pleasant to live in, more civil, more beautiful too?

Mathieu Flonneau

Imposing the city to slow down to 30 km / h, which is not so abusive to compare to the 80 km / h imposed on "territories" - a measure that did not bring luck to its promoters who have been criticized for a a certain contempt for the people for whom this deceleration became a daily hassle - fits into a tale at the comfortable end, quick to put on the pearls and slippers of indignation which essentializes and guilty to the point of absurdity and rejection of 'other citizens.

Do a thousand ideological symbols make a coherent policy? Do we create for this a less anarchic city, more socially inclusive, pleasant to live in, more civil, more beautiful too? In this case, the laudable finality of the fight against congestion - knowingly maintained and aggravated by the collapse of certain engineering skills - is rendered uncertain. In the end, this translates into the “benefit” of new embarrassments on the pavement of Paris, rich in “uberized”, carnival, “virtuous and soft” uses, the advent of which all pedestrians deplore. Unfortunately, therefore, quite the opposite of what seems to be pursued. This is why, following the reminder of these questions and the contextualization of the image in its entirety, the permanent illegal process of motoring en bloc must end.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-07-12

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