Paris older car ban: classic cars now exempt

Paris will ban cars registered before 1997 from the city between 8am and 8pm on weekdays, but classic cars registered 30 years or more ago will be allowed to drive.

The rule is set to be enforced from July 1, and is expected to affect around 10% of cars in the city.

How are other cities tackling harmful pollution from cars?

According to French media reports, these restrictions will become progressively tighter over the rest of this decade until 2020, when the only private vehicles allowed to drive in central Paris will be cars registered after 2011 and motorcycles registered after July 2015.

According to one report, Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo was quoted as saying that while the older diesel cars were the most polluting, “even the filters in the latest models can’t get rid of the most dangerous fine particles”.

One pro-driver campaign group was quoted as saying as many as "three million" cars could be scrapped over the next five years.

These moves, however, could give a boost to France’s domestic car industry, especially if other French cities copy the Paris scheme. The French government has already suggested it could offer incentives of up to €10,000 (around £7435) to get owners of older diesel vehicles to switch to electric cars, such as the Renault Zoe.

Any new scrappage scheme, or low-interest loans aimed at getting drivers out of older cars, would also provide a boost for models with new small-capacity turbo petrol engines; Peugeot, Citroen and Renault have all recently launched such petrol engines.

Berlin was the first city to move against polluting older vehicles, banning them from the city centre nearly five years ago.

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