Lime users received a funny message in their mailbox on Monday, March 20.
Two weeks before the vote on maintaining self-service scooters in Paris, the two-wheel company sent a message as part of a communication campaign.
The subject: “
Minuit Porte de la Chapelle, on foot or on trot?
".
“
Safety when it comes to scooters is a priority
”, first argues the company.
But what security is it?
"
Protecting yourself from the road is obvious
, continues Lime, recalling a few rules of the highway code,
but protecting yourself from others is just as important
," she warns, highlighting this last sentence
.
And what could be safer than riding a scooter in the evening, when the streets are empty and your imagination is trying to reconstruct the last thriller watched at 2 a.m.?
".
Porte de la Chapelle, a station on line 12 of the metro located in the 18ᵉ arrondissement of Paris, has for years concentrated problems of insecurity linked to drug trafficking and uncontrolled migratory flows.
Located not far from Crack Hill, the forced cohabitation between drug addicts and migrants has made the insecurity there more and more burdensome for the residents.
Burglaries, assaults, drugs, prostitution, trafficking of all kinds plunge the inhabitants into disarray.
Again in mid-February, in the middle of the afternoon, an armed individual injured four people by firing a pellet rifle from his window.
“
It would be a shame to find yourself on the evening of Monday April 3, having to take a brisk walk worthy of the Olympics, with the bunch of keys in brass knuckles
”, adds the operator by way of conclusion.
"Clumsy" message
The light tone of the advertising mail, taking up the subject of insecurity, caused some users to react.
Unsurprisingly, it is on the left that the opposition of the City has risen through Laurent Sorel, Insoumis councilor of Paris.
"
Operators will stop at nothing to rot the debate on scooters
," he lamented on Twitter.
"
It's going to be hard with this 'botched' vote to have an informed democratic debate
".
Contacted by BFMTV, the operator recognized a “
clumsy
” message and apologized.
"
Our intention was not to stigmatize a neighborhood but to draw attention to a reality
," argued Lime, based on a Yougov poll from March 2022, according to which "
76% of women say they do not feel safe in the evening when returning to the public highway
".
On April 2, the City of Paris chose to seek the opinion of residents on whether or not to maintain self-service two-wheelers in the capital.
A ballot will be organized in different polling places.
After self-service bicycles in 2017, the first Lime electric scooters landed in Paris a year later.
They are now also visible in the streets of Lyon and Marseille.
The US-based company, formerly called LimeBike, is also present in around twenty cities in Europe.