Agnès Larsen pedalled along the pavement, bumped down the kerb and went through a red light as she headed towards Montparnasse in Paris.

“I hardly ever obey the rules of the road on my bicycle,” she said, coming to a halt in Rue Blaise Desgoffe, yesterday. “I almost got fined once but I used my womanly charms and the policeman let me off.” Next time the 54-year-old art therapist may not be so lucky.

In a clampdown that has infuriated French cycling associations, police have been instructed to enforce laws that have been traditionally ignored.

Previous tolerance of cyclists has been phased out over the past two years, although the policy switch went unannounced at the time. The enforcement is now sufficiently overt — the number of cyclists fined for breaking the law has increased 150 per cent — that it has sparked what some describe as une guerre with the authorities. Last year 2,180 were booked for going through red lights, 387 for going down a one-way street the wrong way, 153 for using mobile phones and 111 for cycling on the pavement.

Cyclists in other cities face similarly tough action in what the authorities say is an attempt to cut the number of accidents involving bicycles. In 2005 there were 509 accidents in which cyclists were killed or injured, a rise of 25 per cent in four years.

With the number of bicycle journeys rising 48 per cent over five years to 140,000 a day in Paris, officials say that cyclists can no longer expect police to ignore their behaviour.

The crackdown has angered bicycle owners. “If I stopped at red lights I’d get all the car and motorbike fumes in my face,” said Mrs Larsen, who has cycled in Paris for ten years. “In other cities in Europe there is one set of traffic lights for motor vehicles and another for cyclists. But here everyone is meant to draw up on the same line, which is why it is so unpleasant.

“I’m not mad and I’m careful not to do anything dangerous but I certainly wouldn’t stop at every red light on my way to work.”

Although cycling is revered as a sport in the land of the Tour de France, it is scorned as a means of transport, according to Bernard Picot, chairman of the Association Vélocité.

“The rules of the road are just not suitable,” he said. “Even police officers who use bicycles do not respect them.”

He said that it was wrong to subject cyclists to the same fines as motorists. These include €90 (£60) for going through a red light, €150 for using a mobile phone, and up to €750 for failing to stop at a pedestrian crossing — an offence that can also result in the loss of a driving licence even when committed on a bicycle.

“We’re getting more and more calls for our members because they are fed up with being fined,” said Mr Picot, who blamed Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right presidential candidate and former Interior Minister, for the crackdown. “The police are waging war on us to please car drivers. Drivers think cyclists are lefties and like to see them punished.”

The controversy is likely to grow this summer when Paris Council makes 45,000 bicycles available to residents and visitors for €1 a day under a public hire scheme.

Bike trials

— The White Bike scheme in Amsterdam failed in the 1960s when people fitted their own locks, or kept them at home. They were removed as a ‘threat to public order’

— The Green Bike scheme, introduced in Cambridge in 1993, was a spectacular failure, the overwhelming majority being lost or stolen

— The Yellow Bike project in Oregon used volunteer labour to release 800 donated bicycles into the public. It ran for three years but ran out of money

— A state sponsored scheme to distribute free bicycles to high school girls in Bangalore sparked a demonstration this month against alleged irregularities in their purchase

Sources: www.velomondial.net; www.camcycle.org.uk

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