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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris, has backed calls to ban SUVs   
   from the city as she warned the heavy vehicles could become “weapons”   
   against other citizens.   
      
   The city council adopted a motion on Friday that calls on the government   
   to bar sports utility vehicles (SUVs) from within Paris’s perimeter, along   
   with any marketing material that promotes their use.   
      
   Ian Brossat, a communist senator for Paris, proposed a draft law earlier   
   this month that would allow local councillors to expel SUVs from the city.   
      
   The government of Emmanuel Macron would need to grant the council the   
   power to do so, and Ms Hidalgo has urged it to approve the measure as she   
   continues a decade-long road safety campaign.   
      
   It came in response to the death of Paul Varry, a 27-year-old cyclist who   
   was hit by an SUV in the city centre following an alleged road rage   
   incident last month. The driver of the Mercedes has since been charged   
   with murder.   
      
   Varry’s death sparked a major public debate about the sharing of public   
   spaces, with the rapid expansion of bike lanes over the last few years.   
      
   “Paul was murdered,” Ms Hidalgo said earlier in the week before council   
   members observed a minute of silence for him. “The car kills, it is a   
   weapon when used in this way.”   
      
   The city said that SUVs, which account for 25 per cent of private vehicles   
   in the capital, were responsible for 10 per cent more accidents than other   
   vehicles and were statistically more fatal for the victims they hit.   
      
   Mr Brossat said there needed to be a “wake-up call” to the road violence   
   plaguing the city and tabled a bill in the Senate that would allow local   
   councillors to ban the heaviest vehicles from city streets.   
      
   In Paris, more than half of journeys are made on foot, 30 per cent by   
   public transport, 11 per cent by bike and four per cent by car.   
      
   “Motorists kill,” added Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, the Green mayor of the   
   12th arrondissement of Paris, who was attacked by a motorcyclist while   
   riding her bike last summer.   
      
   “The public space has become the daily theatre of this danger exacerbated   
   by increasingly massive motorised vehicles,” she said. “We must go even   
   further to protect Parisians.”   
      
   But the opposition was quick to criticise the proposal, blaming road   
   violence on the mayor’s “chaotic” urban planning.   
      
   “The city of Paris has an immense responsibility for these serious   
   accidents,” Aurélie Pirillo, a republican councillor, said.   
      
   “Why are there so many of them? Because it has become anarchy in Paris.   
   This is where your chaotic management of mobility leads.”   
      
   David Alphand, another republican, accused the mayor of “exploiting”   
   Varry’s death in order to advance her “political agenda”.   
      
   The proposal is the mayor’s latest move in what has been branded her “war   
   on motorists”.   
      
   This month a ban was put in place on all vehicles driving through 1.8   
   square miles of central Paris unless the driver had specific business   
   there. Earlier this year the city raised the price of parking for those   
   driving SUVS into the capital.   
      
   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/paris-s-socialist-mayor-backs-call-   
   to-ban-killer-suvs/ar-AA1uFC1i   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)