PARIS — Hundreds of people gathered across France on Saturday, urging an end to “motorised violence” and calling for measures to ease tensions on the French capital’s congested streets, days after a driver crushed a 27-year-old cyclist to death.
Nearly one thousand demonstrators in Paris, according to police figures, many with bicycles, called for appeasement as tensions have risen in the battle for street space in the city centre.
Some boiled with anger, while others grieved, brandishing placards saying “less speed, more tenderness”, “walk or pedal for appeased streets” and “stop motorised violence”.
“At some point, people need to calm down, the road belongs to nobody and to everybody,” Veronique, who declined to give her surname, told AFP.
“It could have been me, a car is a weapon,” said the protester in her thirties, who cycles on an electric bike every day for her work.
“Motorised violence kills. We want the authorities to really grasp this subject,” said Anne Monmarche, president of the organisation Paris en Selle, which advocates improving conditions for cyclists.
Paul Varry, who was killed on Tuesday in central Paris by an SUV driver following an altercation between the pair, was an active member of the Paris en Selle group.
Monmarche is part of a delegation that will meet with Transport Minister Francois Durovray on Monday.
“The idea is to listen to proposals from civil society players who represent cyclists with respect, to build future policy together,” his office told AFP.
