The vote on Sunday "for or against self-service scooters" in Paris, a first of its kind, is a risky bet for Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who wanted this ballot, without arousing enthusiasm.
How many Parisians will vote for a consultation whose elected socialist has pledged to follow the result, while she leans against?
Out of 1.3 million registered voters, the turnout remains the big unknown, a marathon Sunday in the streets of the capital and after a month of March marked by demonstrations and the piling up of uncollected trash.
"It doesn't matter how many," swept Anne Hidalgo, interviewed by AFP. The "tools of participatory democracy improve by using them", she argues, recalling that the participatory budget, marker of her first term, had in 2014 attracted only 40,000 voters, against 215,000 in 2022.
"Anything that can allow democracy, dialogue, consultation, consultation, is better than blockages and withdrawal", still supports the mayor.
But "with the news, the demonstrations against the pension reform", an employee of the Town Hall has "no more illusions about the participation rate".
And with 203 polling stations gathered in 21 sites, the cost of the operation will be "probably indecent compared to the number of voters", she warns.
The town hall indicates that 1,270 agents will be on the bridge all day. The budget, "we will know later," said Anne Hidalgo to AFP.
In its majority, the discomfort is palpable: its communist and environmentalist allies have not hidden their lack of enthusiasm vis-à-vis its initiative, announced in mid-January after an ultimatum to the operators.
"We have other subjects to explore", said the communist Nicolas Bonnet-Oulaldj, citing rentals on the Airbnb platform, a subject on which Anne Hidalgo had pledged to organize a referendum after the municipal elections of 2020.
And while the EELV mobility assistant, David Belliard, wanted to drive out the 15,000 scooters without protocol, he finds himself campaigning "against", while another party figure, MEP Karima Delli, called for save the scooters.
The consultations must "deal with major subjects" and not a "minor" subject, tackles the mayor LR of the 6th arrondissement Jean-Pierre Lecoq, for whom "the Parisian executive only seeks to validate by a vote a decision he has already made but does not want to take on alone."
Hence the position of the right-wing opposition not to call for a vote. "The higher the abstention, the more Parisians will show their indifference to this publicity stunt by Anne Hidalgo", assumes the LR and related group.
The rebellious Laurent Sorel is campaigning for the ban but anticipates a "farce" in view of "the sloppy organization of this consultation", with "a few posters here and there and timid information meetings".
For the only left-wing opponent of the city council, who denounces "a political maneuver" by Anne Hidalgo, this "non-campaign" first serves Clément Beaune, who "takes advantage of it to make the presidential party exist in the capital " .
On Wednesday, the Minister of Transport, to whom we lend the ambition to delight the town hall in 2026, indeed announced a plan intended to regulate the use of scooters, regretting in passing "that we have caricatured and simplified this debate".
"There is zero information, the arguments could not be expressed, there is only one polling station per district. I regret that this subject is binary", launched the minister, who did not "not many doubts about the outcome of this referendum".
Sentenced, the three operators with young customers? Those who unsuccessfully called for electronic voting for this election point out that only 33% of 18-24 year olds "have already heard of the vote", against "77% of 50-64 year olds and 90% of 65 year olds and more," according to a Harris Interactive poll.
On the other hand, they are the only ones to have really mobilized, including with contested methods: race offered on Sunday to vote, paid influencers on social networks...
"There have already been surprises in the elections," wants to believe Erwann Le Page, director of public affairs at Tier, one of the operators.
03/31/2023 22:31:58 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
