French protesters urge calmer roads after cyclist killed

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 to improve 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.

– ‘In shock’ –

Varry died in Paris’s wealthy eighth district after he was run over by a motorist with whom he had quarrelled moments prior.

The 52-year-old driver of the sports utility vehicle (SUV), whose teenage daughter was also in the car, was arrested on the spot. He has been charged with murder.

Emotions ran high at the Parisian rally honouring Varry.

He “dedicated his time to explaining with care and clarity why more security was needed for cyclists in road planning”, said Ariel Weil, the mayor of the central districts of Paris, who attended the gathering.

After a minute of silence and a lengthy applause, Varry’s mother said she was “in shock” and demanded that the perpetrator be “punished”.

Rallies took place in cities across France after organisations promoting cycling put out calls.

Varry “is a bit like the martyr of our cause”, said Aude Fouchet, 52, who took part in a gathering in the southwestern city of Toulouse.

– ‘Daily altercations’ –

In Nantes, western France, demonstrator Arthur Desmidt said Varry’s killing had been unnecessary.

“We are talking about it today, thankfully, but because it was in the middle of Paris. In the countryside, for example, many incidents remain invisible,” said the 29-year-old.

Most of the 226 cyclists killed on French roads in 2023 were in rural environments or in urban peripheries.

“People need to stop considering a car like an extension of themselves and overrating it in everyday life,” said Barbara Delattre, a secondary school teacher in Nice.

Many, like Nicole Penot in Strasbourg, denounced “daily altercations” on the road, adding that “we need to rethink our way of sharing public space”.

Some 150 people gathered in Amiens, northern France, where a cyclist was fatally run over by a waste collection truck in January.

Meanwhile, 200 people united in Bordeaux, where three riders were killed last year and the group Velo-Cite has employed the term “cyclicide”.

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