Paris is not a city of 10 millions, it has only two million habitants. And cars are not reserved to rich people, why would they be? I grew up in Paris, my parents weren't rich, we were living in public housing and we had a car.
Families are not second-tier citizens, and currently the public transports are not suited for them. On top of the other problems, such as the pleasure of having to deal with crackheads and various homeless people in the metro when you have a baby.
When it comes to traffic and urban planning, Paris is best understood as a city of 10+ million people. The administrative subdivision called Paris has only ~2 million people, but the city doesn't end at its borders.
Yes, however there is little urban planning for whole metro, and the administrative level we are talking about here is the intra-muros one. When the mayor decided to reduce the speed on the outer loop, she didn't notify nor discussed with the rest of the metro, for instance. And the measures discussed in the article are specific to Paris.
> Yes, however there is little urban planning for whole metro
Paris biggest infrastructure project for the past 20 years is called "Grand Paris" and revolve entirely around the whole metro. Actually there is literally no urban planning not involving the whole metro. And yes, lowering the speed limit involved multiple consultations with the prefect and the region because it impacts the whole metro.
Considering Paris without its metropole doesn’t make sense. Paris intra-muros is ridiculously small, one eightieth of London, 80% of San Francisco.
You can consider as much as you want, it is not unified. The result is that Paris has an anti-car policy, but the neighboring towns are very pro-car, creating a system where Parisians can't own one, but have to bear their neighbor's who use them to get into the city.
The article you quote says the opposite of what you pretend. I invite you to read the paragraph "Une décision sous le contrôle de l’Etat, rappelle le ministère". It explains in details than the mayor could do nothing without the state agreeing to it.
> You can consider as much as you want, it is not unified.
It is unified. The city and its suburb are one economic unit. Where do you think all the service workers live? You have to be an extremely narrow minded inner city dweller to fail to see this.
> creating a system where Parisians can't own one, but have to bear their neighbor's who use them to get into the city.
I kindly invite you to check the average salary of Paris inhabitants vs the one in the suburbs then take a minute to think about what you just wrote.
Families are not second-tier citizens, and currently the public transports are not suited for them. On top of the other problems, such as the pleasure of having to deal with crackheads and various homeless people in the metro when you have a baby.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Paris