Les « 2-Roues » l’ont échappé belle ! — L’Officiel du cycle, 19 January 1957, by Jacques Catinat

Jacques Catinat’s editorial in L’Officiel du cycle, 19 January 1957, “Les « 2-Roues » l’ont échappé belle !”: the government’s proposed levy on two-wheeler users, which would have raised the bicycle’s yearly charge from 115 to 300 francs and taxed cyclomoteurs and motorcycles by the seat, had been dropped, and the F.N.V.M. had won a fuel allowance for cyclomoteurs. The title and signature are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page image carries it in full.

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LES “2-ROUES” L’ONT ÉCHAPPÉ BELLE !

Jacques CATINAT.

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. The editor’s front-page column reports, as announced in the previous issue, that the main relief the Vélocistes-Motocistes can record at the start of 1957 is the dropping of the Government’s notorious “recettes de poche” (pocket levies) on two-wheeler and light-vehicle users. The scheme would have raised the existing annual tax on bicycle users from 115 francs to 300 francs; charged cyclomoteurs, vélomoteurs and motorized tricycles and quadricycles 500 francs per place (per seat); and charged motorcycles and tricycles of more than 125 cm3 1.000 francs per place. The writer grants that slogans about taking money where it is can be demagogic, but argues that the authorities had tried to draw funds from the most modest part of the Nation, people whose only capital is their wage. He credits the vigorous action of the Fédération Nationale des Vélocistes et Motocistes, which served not only the trade’s Corporation but also the roughly 15 million users of French two-wheelers. Answering representatives of the Administration who said the individual charge would have been light, he calculates that cyclists alone would have paid 1 milliard 850 millions francs more, on top of the 1 milliard 150 millions they already pay through the 115-franc tax. Riders of motorized two-wheelers, he notes, have so far escaped any tax like the one on velocipedes but pay heavily to the Fisc through fuel and oil, as well as the cartes grises required above 50 cm3 and the cartes roses above 125 cm3. He calls the per-place basis of the levy, which Parliament rejected, especially antisocial toward vélomoteurs, scooters and motorcycles: every machine above the cyclomoteur class (scooters, vélomoteurs and motos) typically carries couples, engaged pairs or young households, so the true charge per owner would have been 1.000 or 2.000 francs according to category, not the 500 or 1.000 francs written in the bill. On fuel rationing for motorized two-wheelers, no improvement has been announced: January rations remain 2 liters below those of December. The F.N.V.M. has obtained a promise of a 2-liter bonus for cyclomoteurs, to be distributed through riders’ employers and subject to conditions on the distance between home and work, but how it will be applied is still undecided.]

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[The head of the page carries the magazine’s masthead, the left column the contents list (“Dans ce Numéro”) and the foot the subscription and management box, none of them part of this record.]