Skip to main content

Bike to be ‘little queen of deconfinement’ in France

The French government has announced a €20 million scheme designed to encourage people to use their bicycles as the country emerges from lockdown.
By Adam Hill May 4, 2020 Read time: 1 min
France hails 'little queen of deconfinement' (© Rosshelen | Dreamstime.com)

People will be eligible to receive €50 which will be put towards bike repairs after strict lockdown measures are relaxed on 11 May.

Environment minister Elisabeth Borne said the government wanted this period to be a step forward in bike culture, with the bicycle becoming “the little queen of deconfinement”.

As well as offering financial incentives to individuals, the €20m will also be used for increasing space on roads for bikes and in cycling training. 

The idea is to give people alternatives to car use and public transport - measures which should ease demand on metros and buses while keeping crowded roads freer of vehicles.

The government wants to increase the public transport offering as much as possible and then “drastically reduce demand during peak hours”, Borne said.

Related Content

  • Europe’s road safety record suffers as austerity bites hard, say traffic police chiefs
    March 7, 2018
    Europe’s leading traffic police chiefs are struggling with the challenge of how best to manage the region’s road network in an era of austerity. Things are changing fast, and not for the better, reports Geoff Hadwick. Europe’s road safety record is under threat. Police budgets are being slashed, staff numbers are falling and a long-term trend towards ever-fewer road deaths has ground to a halt. The line on the graph has flat-lined. Does Europe’s road network face a far more dangerous future? Lower and
  • Home based real time travel information drives reduction in car use
    January 20, 2012
    David Crawford investigates a new approach to discouraging car use - the 'kitchen as travel centre'. ITS technology working together with UK planning legislation is driving an innovative 'kitchen as travel centre' approach to home design which is boosting public transport as an alternative to car use. The combination is already proving powerful enough to assuage environmentalist opposition to major urban developments. It is also being seen as a way of delivering wider social and community benefits inside an
  • CES 2020: ITS does Vegas
    March 3, 2020
    Keen to find out what the future holds, 170,000 people gathered in Las Vegas for CES 2020 to see 20,000 product debuts and 4,400 exhibitors... and ITS International was there too (All images: CES®)
  • Transport for London launches competition to create accessibility apps
    March 14, 2013
    Transport for London (TfL) is launching a competition to create new 'Accessibility Apps', marking the first of a series of initiatives to improve the variety of accessibility apps on offer. As part of the competition developers are being invited to apply with ideas for a new travel app which will make Transport for London (TfL) real time data more accessible to a far wider audience than mainstream Apple/Android apps. The winning entries will receive development support from TfL. Making the transport network