In Paris, air pollution is 60 times more deadly than road accidents. Every year, 2,500 Parisians die through having been exposed to atmospheric pollution, caused mainly by automobile exhausts. And that explains why the municipality of Paris is immensely proud to have announced today a new law that will transform permanently the roadway alongside the Seine into a
vehicle-free zone.
This will rejuvenate the magnificent
City of Light... and make it more like what it used to be when I arrived here in 1962.
Meanwhile, a fellow named
Georges Pompidou arrived on the scene, and decided to transform the banks of the Seine at Paris into a highway for motor vehicles. Talking about Pompidou, I remember finding myself just behind him in the queue in a tobacco shop in
Houdan around 1968. He appeared in front of me so quickly that I didn't even think of taking a selfie. But how could I? Back in those ancient times, selfies hadn't even been invented. We lived in a peaceful old rural world.
