PARIS: Parisians woke up on friday to a world without rented electric scooters, loathed as a pedestrian-bothering nuisance by some but mourned by others.
The French capital is the first in Europe to completely ban hire scooters from its streets, after voters overwhelmingly elected to remove them in an April referendum, albeit on a tiny turnout of 7.5 percent.
Friday puts an end to five years of seeing users zip through crowds of pedestrians or park awkwardly on pavements and at intersections, as well as a string of accidents.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo had herself campaigned against scooters, saying removing them would reduce “nuisance”.