They were still 300 to demonstrate this Saturday, December 10, 2022 in Nîmes to say no to the compulsory technical control of two-wheelers. Very angry bikers from Gard, Hérault and Vaucluse
They still wanted to make noise. In the parking lot of the Costières stadium in Nîmes, we counted up to 260 motorcycles. Pilots and passengers, more than 300 people in total. All responded to the call of the French Federation of Angry Bikers, to reiterate their opposition to the compulsory technical control of two-wheelers.
For Corine Fabreguette, secretary of the FFMC 30, this technical control is “a waste of time and waste of money”. “It’s absolutely uselessn, she continues, Bikers maintain their vehicles, what we would like is for the State to maintain its roads!“
The government plans to pass a light technical control to two-wheelers, for less than fifty euros, from June 2023, A note was already sent on November 22 to the regional directorates of equipment (DREAL), responsible for put this control in place,
According to this government note, it would be“a simplified technical control with a significant reduction in control points” compared to that of cars, and “a progressive implementation in 2 stages with a visual check at the start” then “a more extensive control involving the taking of some measures using dedicated equipment (example: pollutant emissions)”.
But for Michel Fabreguette, coordinator of the FFMC 30, this simplified control makes no sense as he explained to France 3 Occitanie.
We are used to monitoring our tires and our brakes because it is visual. We don’t need people who are going to charge us a fortune, between 50 and 70 euros, to do a visual check. just because anti-biker ecologists in the Paris region decide that we need to make less noise and less pollution.
Michel Fabreguette, FFMC 30 coordinator.
And the spokesperson for the Gard angry bikers to add that “People can always change their exhaust before the technical inspection and put it back followingwards and still make noise!”
At the end of October, the Council of State restored the introduction of this technical control imposed by the European Union to protect the safety of motorcyclists but also the environment, and already applied in many countries. The application of this measure was scheduled for early 2023 before it was canceled by the government.
The Minister of Transport Clément Beaune has since met with environmental associations which demanded the application of the measure but also with associations of motorcyclists, standing up once morest this control, and technical control networks.
According to the note, the government “works in conjunction with technical control federations” so that their territorial network “is sufficiently dense and that users do not have to travel too long a distance”and so that “the price of the technical control remains as low as possible (it should normally be less than 50 euros)”.
Consideration is also underway to “spread over time the passage to the technical control of the fleet of category L vehicles”i.e. cars without a licence, “in particular to avoid a peak of activity in the technical control centers followed by a period of low activity”. Clément Beaune had indicated at the beginning of November that European regulations allowed “significant leeway” to governments, evoking a control “which is the least penalizing possible”.
The demonstrators gathered in Nîmes have announced a new rally on Saturday December 17 in Montpellier with bikers “all dressed up as Santa Claus”.
Written with Camille Thomaso and AFP.
