Socialist mayor of Paris backs call to ban killer SUVs

City officials said SUVs, which make up 25 percent of private vehicles in the capital, caused 10 percent more crashes than other vehicles and were statistically more deadly to the victims they hit.

Mr Brossatt said there was a need to serve as a “wake-up call” about the road violence plaguing the city and introduced a bill in the Senate that would allow local councilors to ban the heaviest vehicles on city streets.

In Paris, more than half of trips are made on foot, 30 percent by public transport, 11 percent by bicycle and 4 percent by car.

“Motorists are killing,” added Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, the Green mayor of Paris’s 12th arrondissement, who was attacked by a motorcyclist while she was riding her bike last summer.

“Public space has become the daily theater of this danger, exacerbated by increasingly massive motorized vehicles,” she said. “We must go even further to protect Parisians.”

But the opposition was quick to criticize the proposal, blaming the mayor’s “chaotic” urban planning for road violence.

“The city of Paris bears enormous responsibility for these serious accidents,” said Aurélie Pirillo, a member of the Republican council.

“Why are there so many of them? Because anarchy began in Paris. This is what your chaotic mobility management leads to.”

David Alfand, another Republican, accused the mayor of “exploiting” Warri’s death to advance her “political agenda.”

The proposal is the mayor’s latest move in what he calls his “war on motorists.”

This month a ban was introduced on all vehicles passing through 1.8 square miles of central Paris unless the driver had specific business there. Earlier this year, the city raised parking prices for those driving SUVs into the capital.