Paris to ban older vehicles on weekdays

The French capital will ban vehicles built before 1997 from driving into the city on workdays from 1 July. Anyone caught driving an older vehicle will face fines ranging from €35 (£27.50) to biting €450 (£350). 

Around 30,000 vehicles over 19 years old will be affected. 

Motorcycles also face restrictions, with a driving ban on all two-wheeled motor vehicles made before 2000. 

The new ban is part of a range of measures brought in by the city of Paris. Following in the wake of build-ups of pollutants during winter 2014, when the city introduced temporary car bans until levels started to abate. Paris went on to introduce occasional periodic driving bans for such hotspots as the Champs Élysées. 

While older cars will still be allowed on the roads before 8am and after 8pm, and without restriction on weekends, the vehicle bans are set to be tightened in 2020 when it will be extended to 24 hours a day on weekday. In 2020 any car made before 2010 will also be prohibited from daytime driving.

The Parisian ban coincides with a new national system of classifying cars according to their emissions levels that comes into effect on 1 July. French cars will be grouped into six categories depending on the degree of pollution they create. Drivers can apply to receive a display disc for their windshield. The discs will be free for the first 6 months and €5 thereafter. They won’t be compulsory across France, though drivers of zero and very-low emitting vehicles will receive occasional perks, such as priority parking.

While discretionary in general, the new windshield discs will be obligatory in Paris, where the most polluting vehicles will face the weekday ban. 

The original national plan was to divide cars into four categories rather than six. Thus could have meant up to 10% of the Parisian cars being banned. However, petitions by the Mayors of Paris, Versailles and Grenoble led to the more graduated six-tier system.