On the ground, at the foot of the bike hook, a U-lock is split in two.
No other traces remain of the two-wheeler parked in front of the Gare de l'Est station.
If we first think of a theft, it is in fact a completely legal kidnapping.
Since the beginning of February, large posters hung at the entrance to the station have invited cyclists to remove their bikes from the station grounds for a few weeks due to work, under penalty of “removal”.
And those who didn't play the game or who hung their nails on the station gates paid the price.
This is the case with Étienne.
If the cyclist quickly suspected that his electric bike had been removed at the request of the SNCF, locating it was another story.
“It’s insane,” exclaims the fifty-year-old who has been struggling for three days to recover his bike “worth 2,500 euros”.
“I hung it outside the work zone, on the gates,” he assures.
If I didn't have the right to put it here, it's normal that it was removed.
But then, that there is no way to be able to recover it, that there is no information… I don’t understand.”
After inquiring at the SNCF, the Gare de l'Est police station, the Villette prepound and the 10th arrondissement police station, it was finally at the La Courneuve pound that Étienne found his bike, in an area managed by the police headquarters, according to the officers on site.
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In this space, two mountains of bicycles face each other.
Officially, “there is no longer an impound dedicated to bicycles”, indicates the Paris town hall on its website.
“Normally, they don’t necessarily land here,” explains an agent on site.
But for example, the 10th police station does not have enough space.
Afterwards it goes into the 17th century… Nobody knows about it but if it is found, people are looking for them.”
This only concerns bicycles removed for inconvenient parking as part of work or an event on public roads.
Abandoned bicycles or bicycles in the process of being destroyed are managed by the Paris town hall services and end up in the recycling center or are revalorized by associations.
In the pile, Étienne quickly locates his bike, lying on the ground in the grass.
To his great surprise, he got it back without paying a fine.
All that remains is to replace his “two padlocks for 140 euros”.
And if the two-wheelers are not claimed by their owners, they “will be destroyed,” the agent tells us, surprised that we managed to locate them.
“You're lucky there, I don't know how you managed to know that they were here,” he asks when faced with another person who came to collect his bike, also taken from the station square. from the east.
When contacted, the Paris town hall and the police headquarters were unable to provide answers to our questions.
A report to watch in the video at the top of the article.