For two months, the world's attention was focused on the French capital, the country's showpiece in the international media. The management of the Olympic Games, which welcomed 10 million visitors, was widely praised. Whether in terms of competition organization, public transport operations or accommodation facilities, the event showcased the Greater Paris region, with Paris and its river at the center.

Once the festivities were over, the city returned to its usual rhythm, as did its political leaders. While the question of the legacy of the Olympic Games loomed large, controversy resurfaced over the future of the Paris ring road, Europe's busiest urban freeway and the symbol of a metropolis under pressure.

On the one hand, Paris City Hall wishes to pursue its bioclimatic plan by reducing the speed limit on the ring road from 70 kilometers per hour down to 50 kilometers and dedicating a lane to public transport and car-sharing. The city argues that lowering the speed limit would reduce noise and pollution, making daily life easier for the 500,000 residents living nearby, especially at night. On the other hand, regional authorities and the French state are concerned about the impact of these measures on the mobility of people living in the inner and outer suburbs, given that the ring road is currently used by over a million vehicles a day, 80% of whose drivers live outside Paris, according to the Paris Region Institute.

These debates highlight the political challenges France faces in responding to a major urban planning issue: the necessary transformation of infrastructures inherited from the thermo-industrial era. Construction of the ring road, begun in 1956, was not completed until 1973, a year after the publication of the Meadows report entitled "The Limits to Growth."

Power struggles

Even before completion, the infrastructure already proved to be outdated. In the meantime, the car had become a mass-market product. By the time the first sections of this ring road had been built, the freeway was already congested, a victim of its own success. It acted as a magnet, attracting more and more traffic, leading to increasing congestion and a deterioration in service.

A source of multiple nuisances (pollution, noise, fine particles), the ring road encapsulates both the issues of the century and the challenges of metropolitan governance. It is in fact a municipal road, where the city can unilaterally set the maximum speed limit. But it also marks the boundary between the capital and the suburbs, at the heart of a conurbation of 10 million inhabitants, and represents a strategic axis for regional traffic, connected to a departmental and national network.

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