Paris: legal challenge to car-free promenade by Seine

Court ruling raises possibility of traffic returning to popular pedestrianised right bank

When pedestrians reclaimed a stretch of once traffic-clogged dual carriageway on Paris's right bank a year-and-a-half ago, it was a symbol of the leftwing mayor's anti-pollution fight to push cars out of the French capital.

But a court ruling has raised the spectre of traffic potentially being forced back on to the newly popular, car-free promenade by the river Seine - the latest battle in the city's ongoing "car-wars" between the left and right.