When Paris’s new leftwing mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, leapt on a bike for a victory tour along the French capital’s large network of new cycle lanes on Sunday night, he was sending a crucial message to Paris residents.
Not only would he continue to build bike lanes and keep limits on cars in the city, keeping the French capital’s pro-cycling focus on environmental issues and reducing its dangerous air pollution., he was also seeking to style himself as humble, frugal – “of an absolute moral rigour”, in his words – after promising to shrink Paris officials’ hefty expenses accounts and end the use of chauffeur-driven cars.
