But apparently only expensive and new electric bikes, not regular bikes or used bikes. And you have to make 900 euros a months, otherwise you're not worthy of assistance, but also you have to pay 60% out of pocket....

It's certainly far from perfect, but it's still replacing cars with bicycles.

Yeah, but the bottom of the market where there's no slack isn't where you start.

Kicking the poors while they're down and/or pulling the rug out from under people who are just barely doing better is not a sustainable way of decarbonizing society and it seems like every decarbonizing policy does just that. We can get away with a few such policies but when they're all like that it doesn't work.

I doubt many people would actually replace cars with bicycles.

It's not the same use case and in congested places like central Paris people who need a motor have scooters.

Feedback stats on these schemes are important but rarely conducted or published in a transparent way as the government obviously has a vested interest in claiming that they work great.

Since you need to get rid of a car to get the subsidy and you have to pay a substantial part of the cost of the bicycle yourself, even if you wanted to scrap a car to buy a new one you probably expect to use the electric bike at least often enough to justify paying the subsidized price for it.

The point of my previous comment is that I don't see many people swapping their car for an ebike. That would be the key metric to judge this scheme (alongside the actual cost to taxpayers...)

I am sure some people will use the scheme but probably because they were thinking of getting an ebike anyway and a replacing their car for a new one...

It's the usual and main issue with those schemes: they are political decisions and don't always make practical or economical sense.

Sure, if you want one bycicle per person on the family, and everyone enjoys getting soaked in water during Winter.