A driver who ran over a cyclist following an altercation in central Paris has been charged with murder in a case that shocked the capital. The 52-year-old driver of the SUV is accused of having deliberately targeted the cyclist, who was named as Paul Varry, 27. A judge will now rule whether he should be held in custody ahead of trial.
The driver, whose teenage daughter was also in the car, was arrested on the spot. On Tuesday, October 15, the motorist and the cyclist were seen having an angry dispute by the side of the road.
According to witnesses, the driver, trying to make progress on the congested road, steered his car onto the adjacent cycling path for about 200 meters, where he drove over the cyclist's foot, prosecutors said.
Varry, the cyclist, banged his fist on the hood of the car to alert the driver, who backed up at first. Varry then stood in front of the car expressing his anger at the driver, who started driving toward him. Tuesday's incident in Paris's wealthy 8th arrondissement came as tensions rise in the battle for street space in the congested capital. Tense exchanges between cyclists and drivers are commonplace in the city center.
An autopsy showed that Varry's lethal injuries had been caused by the car. CCTV footage showed the vehicle rising once when the left front tire rolled over the body, and then again when the back tire went over. A test for alcohol and drugs came back negative.
The man's lawyer, Franck Cohen, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that his client "has no explanation for what happened." He said the driver "tried to extract himself" from a situation of "stress and fear" and may have lost control of his vehicle in the process. The driver had since been "thinking much more about the young man, who is the same age as his son, than about himself," Cohen said.
French associations promoting cycling have condemned the incident, with "Paris en Selle" (Paris in the Seat) calling it "an unacceptable tragedy."
Some 200 people gathered by the Madeleine church on Wednesday to pay tribute to Varry. The city council of Saint-Ouen, the northern French suburb where he lived, said he had made the cause of urban cyclists "the commitment of his life" and had helped the authorities promote cycling in the city.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that "it is unacceptable to die in this day and age while cycling in Paris, at 27 years old."
Hidalgo, who has been running city hall for over a decade, is behind an ambitious initiative to turn Paris into a cycling-friendly city with the aim of making it "100% bikeable" by 2026.
Paris is already ranked as one of the world's dozen or so most bike-friendly cities since getting hundreds of kilometers of designated cycling paths. Cyclists also get to run some red lights so long as there are no pedestrians and can take one-way streets in the opposite direction from cars.
Much of the Rue de Rivoli, one of the main thoroughfares in the heart of Paris, is now reserved for bicycles. City Hall has promised to turn over the iconic Place de la Concorde to bikes and pedestrians soon. But the new space accorded to bicycles has often come out of roads previously used entirely by motorists, many of whom resent the change. Last year, 226 cyclists died on French roads.