These are the little everyday annoyances: Surprised hand gestures, reproachful scowls, disdainful looks. Occasionally, there are also sharp exclamations like "Hey! Ho!" overfamiliar comments, such as "look before you cross," and sometimes even insults. In urban spaces, the cohabitation between the crowds of pedestrians and all the many other modes of transport (fatbikes, electric unicycles, cargo bikes, scooters, etc.) is causing friction, especially around rush hour. At the heart of this transport hubbub, however, one particular type of user has become the focus of ire: cyclists. All of this, despite their spotless carbon footprint.

"Bikes have taken charge over all other road users. They don't respect anything!" exclaimed Matthieu Restout, a police officer in the western French town of Flers. He spoke of a scene he had witnessed during this summer's Olympic Games, when he was on duty in Paris, on the busy rue de Rivoli: "The crowds meants we had to regulate pedestrians and bicycles. But [the bikes] were going in all directions, on and off the cycle paths, without paying any attention to those on foot, not adults not children. When we asked them to respect the traffic lights or right of way, these neo-cyclists didn't care at all. They even had the gall to reply: 'I've got the right of way, I rang my bell!'" To hear this policeman tell it, it was as if an uncontrollable madness seemed to take hold of city dwellers when they got on their bicycles. Could cyclists have inherited the same behavioral issues as motorists?

On the social media platform X, the hashtag #cyclopathe sometimes linked to the #saccageparis ("ransack Paris") accounts, which vilify Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo's policies in the capital, has been used to denounce situations deemed to be unacceptable or annoying: Cyclists allegedly "causing accidents on purpose," a middle finger flipped by a rude cyclist, a bicycle parked on a sidewalk. Among these posts was this tirade: "How many children have been, just barely, pushed back, by their parents, from the unyielding path of an irresponsible cyclist crossing a Parisian park and insulting them in response to their protests?"

On Instagram and TikTok, a sarcastic video posted by the actors and comedians Louis Klein and Guillaume de Saint-Sernin, on the account Concon ("Idiot") Télévision, features a cyclist stopping at a red light, which is presented as such an odd situation that a pedestrian who was just about to cross the street asks him for a selfie. "We don't have license plates, and we're a green means of locomotion, we're somewhat above everyone else," jokes the cyclist, played by stand-up comedian Guillaume de Saint-Sernin, thus explaining that cyclists who run red lights do so with the sense that they're in the right. Furtive and sometimes risky overtaking maneuvers; sharply ringing their bells, as if they are speaking to a servant to ask him to quickly step aside; excessive speed: Cyclists are depicted as a new dominant class, one which treats others with contempt. "Before, you used to have the right of way as a pedestrian," said Nathalie Ancelin, who has become accustomed to seeing bicycles zoom around her, in Paris, whenever she steps onto a crosswalk.

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