PARIS: With the wind rushing through their hair, they zip past on bikes, electric scooters and mono-wheels, effortlessly passing lines of hot-and-bothered drivers stuck in the endless Paris traffic.
And the estimated 15,000 e-scooters on the streets have also triggered a backlash, with riders initially dumping them randomly on pavements, cluttering the curb and creating a nuisance for pedestrians."I'd like to slap them," fumes Nordine, a woman in her 40s walking through the Marais district, muttering furiously about"the lack of public spirit".
Since Jul 1, all diesel vehicles registered before 2006 have been banned from entering the city, but should the authorities go further and shut the entire city centre to cars?Today, just over a third - 37 per cent - of Parisian homes have a car, and that drops to one in five in the city centre, according to the mayor's office.