France: €4,000 subsidy for car retirement and electric bike purchase  

He wants “cleaner” means of transport

Wanting to motivate its citizens to choose greener means of transport, France is offering a subsidy of €4,000 for anyone who chooses to sell their car and buy an electric bicycle. The subsidy will have economic criteria and priority will be given to those with low incomes, while the amount of the subsidy will decrease as income increases.

The policy of subsidizing “green” transport is not new in France, but the country has decided whether to increase the amount of subsidies to cope with competition from countries that traditionally use bicycles a lot, such as the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. France’s goal is to have 9% of citizens cycling by 2024. This percentage is just 3% now, while in the Netherlands it is 27%.

Macron’s government even wants to make Paris a fully bike-friendly city and for this purpose it will allocate €250 million, while an additional 130 kilometers of bike lanes will be added to the city within the next 5 years.