More and more French people are choosing this mode of transport and the government wants to encourage the development of this sector even further.
:quality(50)/2024/03/04/fanny-guinochet-65e60267ebb86457775765.png)
Published
Update
Reading time: 2 min
:quality(50)/2024/04/22/gettyimages-1997835999-66260751844de361789517.jpg)
The craze for cycling is observable in the city as well as in the countryside. Since Covid, the practice in France has continued to progress: 5% more on average in 2023 but, for example, 10% increase in Toulouse and Chambéry, and more than 11% in Paris. Faced with inflation, the bicycle has the advantage of being a free means of transport, or almost. It’s good for health, for the environment, and from the classic, muscle bicycle, to the cargo bike, including electric bikes, in recent years, the range has expanded a lot.
In France, twice as many bikes are sold today as cars, to the point where there are stock shortages. This is why the government is seeking to develop an economic sector in the country, a complete sector: from production to recycling. It’s a gamble, because the bike “made in France”, in fact, almost no longer exists. A tricolor sector lasted until the 80s and 90s but it disappeared. Today, we hardly manufacture bicycle parts in the country; we mainly import them from Asia. Not to mention that for electric bicycles, for example, we find ourselves, as with cars, completely dependent on semiconductors imported from China and Taiwan.
Support for all bicycle-related businesses
We are certainly still assembling a few bikes. Barely 850,000 out of the 2.5 million bicycles sold each year in France. The government therefore wants to support companies that work on research, development and innovation. He also intends to help those who produce brakes, cranksets, frames, luggage racks, in short, everything that makes up a bicycle, to help them relocate and develop.
As part of the “bike plan” launched last year, the government has already distributed 3.5 million euros. But now he wants to move up a gear and promises to put money back on the table. The objective is also to create jobs. Today, cycling represents nearly 50,000 direct jobs in France. the objective is to have three times as many by 2050. An ambitious challenge to say the least!