The e-scooter ban won 89 percent of the votes according to the city hall Twitter account in what was billed as a rare "public consultation" that prompted long lines at ballot boxes around the city. However, turnout in the referendum was low at 7.46 percent of registered voters.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she would respect the vote.

"From Sept. 1, there will be no more electric scooters for rent in Paris," she told a news conference late on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Scooter operators pointed to the low voter turnout and said they hoped Hidalgo would seek a compromise.

"We remain hopeful that we can continue to work with Mayor Hidalgo to adopt sensible regulations instead of a ban on e-scooters, and avoid a step backward for Paris," a spokesperson for Lime said on Monday.

A spokesman for Dott said the referendum was "heavily impacted by very restrictive voting methods" that led to an extremely low turnout heavily skewed toward older age groups.

French Transportation Minister Clement Beaune, seen as a possible contender for the mayor's post in 2026, said on BFM television the vote was "a massive democratic flop".

Electric scooters accessed through smartphone apps have operated in Paris since 2018, but following complaints about their anarchic deployment, Paris in 2020 cut the number of operators to three.

It gave them a three-year contract, required that scooters' speeds be capped at 20 kilometers per hour and imposed designated scooter parking areas, similar to restrictions being imposed in other cities worldwide. The current contracts run until September.

Operators had offered further regulations, including checking users were over 18, fixing license plates so police could identify traffic offenders and limiting to one passenger.

In 2021, 24 people died in scooter-related accidents in France, including one in Paris. Last year, Paris registered 459 accidents with e-scooters and similar vehicles, including three fatal ones.

"In my work, we see a lot of road accidents caused by scooters, so we really see the negative effects," general physician Audrey Cordier, 38, told Reuters after voting against the scooters.

Some voters said they would prefer tighter regulations than an outright ban.

"I don't want scooters to do whatever they want on pavements, but banning them is not the priority," Pierre Waeckerle, 35, said.

'Against the current'?

The ban represents a significant financial and reputational blow for the multinational operators and could encourage other cities to follow suit.

Montreal outlawed all electric scooters for rental or private use in 2020, while Copenhagen banned rental versions in 2020 before bringing them back a year later with stricter conditions. 

E-scooter companies have backed tighter regulations in France, unveiled by the government last week, which would increase the minimum age to 14 and increase fines for offences such as driving with a passenger. 

"Of course, there are driving offences and dangerous behavior. That's human nature, not the vehicle," Nicolas Gorse, managing director of Dott, told LCI television on Sunday. "What we need is to educate, detect and punish."   

Hadi Karam, general manager for France at Lime, told AFP last week that Paris was going "against the current" in seeking to ban rental e-scooters, citing recent decisions to expand them in Washington, New York in the United States, Madrid or London. 

"There's a trend toward these vehicles and this trend started in Paris which was a pioneer," he said.

Operators offered free rides to customers who voted on Sunday and employed online influencers to try to drum up support among their mostly young users – largely in vain judged by the high proportion of older voters seen lining up to vote.

"They're dangerous, both for those who use them and for pedestrians," Francoise Granier, a 68-year-old doctor who voted in the ninth district of the capital, told AFP. "And the police never intervene."

Like her, IT worker Michael Dahan, 50, deplored the state of the capital's streets, saying: "If it was better regulated, I wouldn't be against [...] but you see people behaving in a crazy way."

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