A dangerous air-pollution spike that has left Paris and much of northern France covered in a thick cloud of toxic smog prompted French authorities to cut the city's traffic in half, starting next week.
The emergency measure will allow cars with license plates ending in odd numbers to drive on odd-numbered days and vice versa, according to French newspaper Le Monde. The restrictions do not apply to taxis, hybrid or electric cars, and vehicles carrying more than three people.
Earlier this week, Paris cut down speed limits to about 12 miles per hour, according to The Guardian, and made all public transportation free in a bid to discourage Parisians from driving.
Air pollution has gotten so bad this week in the City of Light that the Eiffel Tower seemed to nearly disappear within a haze of smog. Winds swept the noxious mix of pollutants across the English Channel to the United Kingdom and other parts of Western Europe.
French air-quality monitoring agency Airparif blamed the smog on seasonal weather patterns and emissions from farms and vehicle traffic. A persistent area of high pressure has caused sinking winds that trap the pollutants at lower levels of the atmosphere over northern France.
A similar air-pollution crisis blanketed the cityscape in smog around this time last year, prompting the French government to enact the same emergency driving ban.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo had called on the French government to limit the number of cars on the road earlier this week, but French Minister of Ecology Ségolène Royal resisted taking such drastic measures in hopes that the situation would improve. But on Saturday, Hidalgo announced via Twitter that the government had agreed to her requests.
"The Parisians' health is not negotiable," she tweeted, according to a Google translation. "I stand by my request for [the] establishment of alternating traffic."
La santé des Parisiens ne se négocie pas. Je maintiens ma demande de mise en place de la circulation alternée.— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) March 19, 2015
Airparif measures the concentration of PM-10 particles, or those with a diameter of 10 microns or less. These particles are hazardous because they can lodge deep inside human lungs, and cause breathing problems for people with asthma, as well as cancer in cases of longterm exposure.
The dangerously high levels of PM-10 particles prompted Airparif to raise its air-pollution alert to the highest possible level on its index last week, before dropping to its second highest on Saturday.
