Anne Hidalgo, Paris’s Socialist Mayor, has won a battle with the French government to restrict driving during periods of particularly heavy pollution. Following a spike in pollution on Monday, alternate driving days for cars with odd and even number registration plates have been introduced for when air quality falls below a certain level. The move has been pushed through in the run-up to the Paris Climate Summit in December, with officials clearly anxious to quell any obstacles to the event running smoothly. However Guido’s not so sure that the French, known for their notoriously blasé attitude to transport regulation, will pay the blindest bit of notice to Ms. Hidalgo’s imperative. Are the police supposed to check the numberplate of every single car?

Hidalgo is known for her hard line stance towards the use of cars in the capital, even banning them from the city’s streets for a day earlier this year, and has previously stated that she aims to make the Seine so clean that by 2024 Parisians can bathe in it. So cars will be gone, but at least they can swim to work…