Sacré Bleu! - le Maire de Paris est un Bouffon

If that title doesn't make any sense, blame Google Translate, it's meant to follow on from my Post from 12 months ago entitled "The Mayor of London is a Buffoon". His Parisian counterpart, according to caradvice.com.au, wants to ban cars built before 1997 from the city centre of Paris.

This is the chap - Bertrand Delanoe. I'm surprised Fox News haven't picked up on this one yet - it's a good excuse for some Socialist-bashing.

Now, I'm not a fan of old French cars - I'm not particularly a fan of new French cars either - but this is flippin' ridiculous.

and why 1997? This will exclude some servicible Clios, 405s and BXs - and that's just picking on the French manufacturers. The proposal would also outlaw pre-1996 trucks and delivery vehicles from travelling inside the A86 motorway that surrounds Paris, as well as all motorcycles that are more than 10 years old. Motorcycles! They last longer than cars and pollute considerably less.

Bert says “This is for our citizens. It’s a public health battle and we’ve been fighting since 2001 to try and make the air here more breathable.” Except this will affect 3% of cars in Paris and we would assume that those affected will just have to buy younger cars so the overall gain will be small. Whereas the financial effect on, presumably the poorer, car owners will be proportionally great - especially if they can't sell their old cars on to other Parisians. The only upside I can see is that you will get less of these

clogging up this:

Wirral Easter Egg Run 2010

I'm not usually into bikes but I do enthuse about this. Every year, just before Easter, motorbikists gather from all over Britain to ride through the mean streets of Wirral...
Literally tens of thousands of bikes are involved and the procession lasts a couple of hours. Some of the particiapants dress up and this year we had an Elvis, Laurel & Hardy and clowns together with the usual bunch of rabbits and chicks. It started about thirty years ago when a local group of bikers decided to do a charity run carrying Easter Eggs to the children at the local hospital. Today all sorts of people are involved including Hells Angels, scooter clubs, old men on classic bikes and fat blokes on quads. I reckon even the Police enjoy it, if nothing else, they get to hand out Think Bike and BikeSafe leaflets and flags.