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Paris mayor plans to transform city centre into pedestrian zone

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who faces a tough re-election campaign in 2020, has plans, if re-elected, to transform the four central Paris districts into largely pedestrian zones as part of a continuing programme to clean up the French capital's chronic air pollution.

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The Mayor of Paris has plans to pedestrianise the centre of the French capital, which includes landmarks such as Notre Dame Cathedral, reports BBC News.

The plans would severely restrict traffic in the city's first four districts, known as arrondissements, with electric shuttles brought in as an alternative, AFP reported.

It would happen in Mayor Anne Hidalgo's next term, assuming she is re-elected.

She has made reducing pollution a central part of her policy.

Last month the European Environment Agency warned that air pollution caused 500,000 premature deaths in Europe every year.

Traffic is currently limited in the central arrondissements on one Sunday per month.

Ms Hidalgo also says she wants to expand this scheme, known as "Paris breathes", to every Sunday by next year.

The mayor, who took office in 2014, has not yet announced whether she will stand for re-election.

On Wednesday Ms Hidalgo said the arrondissements themselves proposed full pedestrianisation based on feedback from residents, Cnews reported.

Initial proposals for full pedestrianisation will be presented at council sessions in each of the four arrondissements next week, reports say.

Members of Ms Hidalgo's team told Cnews that the combined area to be pedestrianised was "small and sufficiently served by public transport" for the scheme to work.

However some have criticised the proposal.

Dominique Reynié, a professor at the prestigious Sciences-Po university, tweeted that Paris was "closing in on itself in a kind of appropriation to the benefit of a small group of people who have been persuaded to have an ecologist outlook".

See more of this report from BBC News.