As a cyclist (not an idealist though), I consider the major problem in France to be the infrastructure. A lot of people do not use their bike because it is dangerous in the cities and because there are almost no place to park your bike. I suppose it is because of the car culture as you said. It was not considered worth it to invest in it until recently.

This. And the fact that Paris has a good metro network coverage.

The Paris metro is really nice, but bicycling would be faster if the traffic lights etc were friendly. It's a nice dense city where you could go far in 20 minutes on a bicycle.

On the metro it's easy to waste 20 minutes just on the extras — walking to/from the station, inside the stations, waiting for the trains. Each of these things takes just a few minutes because the stations are close and the trains run often, but few+few+few so easily =30, particularly if you have to change trains.

Bicycling is also for people that already find it way more convenient/enjoyable/cheaper/faster/ to move through a city.

The incentive is not only on gas price, but on the whole experience, where the environment/infrastructure play a lot. Architecture governs.

When moving/parking your car is slow, complex, expensive, whereas using a bike (be it powered or not), public transportation or your feets is not, depending on your travel, the choice is quickly made.

Some cities are rearchitecting around this whole experience. Paris, Nantes (for those I know well) have been doing this for several years already, and it's a long, painful process for everyone and every business, but that definitely feels like a good thing.

> Bicycling is also for people that already find it way more convenient/enjoyable/cheaper/faster/ to move through a city.

I don't get the "enjoyable" part. Maybe it's because I live in the country, but the thought of taking deep breaths in an environment saturated with car exhausts would stop me.

I totally agree on the 2020 goal: it seems totally really un-reasonnable to me too. You simply don't change a car-centric population in 5 years!

I commute by bike everyday, 10 km, in a medium city in the french alps. Every single day I encounter a situation where I am concretely in danger. French drivers suck and simply don't care about bike riders.

When you ride a bicycle in Berlin or Tokyo you truly sense what it's like to be actually considered, and it changes all your interface with the city!

Completely out of topic but: "...in a medium city in the french alps" When I read this I thought about Grenoble

Or maybe Annecy.

> we French don't have a bicycle culture. For us every day bicycling (not sport) is for people that can't afford a car (and the rare idealists that think they're going to save the planet).

Have you been to Strasbourg recently? There's definitely a bicycle culture there...

Not recently, but given Strasbourg is literally touching Germany I'm not surprised.

> And btw, we French don't have a bicycle culture.

Yet!