Paris deputy mayor for urban planning Jean-Louis Missika, told Reuters the city wants to control the bike schemes and does not want to see them to break into an unregulated Paris market the way U.S. ride-hailing firm Uber and short-term rental firm Airbnb have in recent years.
“We will ask the government to give the city the power to regulate under the form of a license,” Missika said on the sidelines of urban mobility conference Autonomy.
He added that bike share operators will have to respect rules about using public space and may have to pay a license.
In an interview with Reuters, Missika said Paris is in favor of bike-sharing, which it has pioneered with its dock-based Velib scheme, but added he was not too happy with the way Gobee.bike had started operations.
Ofo - which operates 10 million bikes in China and has launched thousands in Milan, Vienna, Valencia and London - told Reuters last week it plans to launch its bikes in Paris around year-end.
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Missika said several operators have contacted the city to discuss introducing their bike schemes, including Ofo’s big Chinese competitor Mobike.
Mobike operates 7 million bikes worldwide, mostly in China. In May, it raised $600 million from China’s Internet giant Tencent Holdings and several private equity firms, which will be partly used for foreign expansion.
