The lack of sound on the Champs Elysées was striking.

With the eight lanes of France’s most famous avenue cleared of all traffic on Paris’s first car-free day, the usual cacophony of car-revving and thundering motorbike engines had given way to the squeak of bicycle wheels, the clatter of skateboards, the laughter of children on rollerblades and even the gentle rustling of wind in the trees. It was, as one Parisian pensioner observed as she ambled up the center of the road taking big gulps of air, “like a headache lifting."

There were other weird and pleasant effects of this tiny glimpse of carless utopia. “Everyone seems to be smiling, and not as stressed,” marveled Elisabeth Pagnac, a civil servant in her 50s, who had been emboldened to cycle in from the eastern edge of the city without a helmet. But strangest of all was the sky.

“I live high in a tower block in the east of the city and looking out of my window today I saw the difference straight away: the sky has never been this blue, it really is different without a hazy layer of pollution hanging in the air,” she said.

Others agreed that looking up towards the Arc de Triomphe and to La Défense beyond, a view that was so often hazy and distorted by the city’s famous smog was suddenly crystal clear.

“What a joy to go down the middle of the road taking in the sights,” said Claude Noirault, a wheelchair-basketball coach, who had done 10km in his sports wheelchair and was planning 30km more.

When Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, launched the idea of the French capital’s first car-free day at the suggestion of the collective Paris Without Cars, pollution was top of the agenda.

In March this year, a rise in air pollution briefly made Paris the most polluted city in the world, with smog so bad it almost completely obscured the city’s landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower. As Paris prepares to host this year’s massive climate change conference, the city was under pressure to make a gesture.

France has the highest percentage of diesel cars on the road in Europe, as successive governments have subsidized the fuel, making it cheaper than petrol. The Volkswagen scandal over emissions-rigging has increased pressure on the French government to act on car pollution.

As Paris mayor, Hidalgo has set out to push the city towards less car use and cleaner vehicles. She has vowed to eradicate diesel use in the city by 2020 and plans to extend car-free areas along the Seine.

But Paris’s car-free day was not without controversy, not least because it wasn’t a totally carless day and was limited to only around one-third of the city. After a standoff with police, authorities were only able to make car-free certain parts of the city centre, stretching between Bastille and the Champs Elysées, and the outer Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, and only between 11am and 6pm. In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour.

Early in the morning, some of the smaller streets near Republique were deserted, and on the empty Champs Elysées people picnicked on the curb. But by noon, as taxis and buses were allowed to move freely, even in the “car-free” zones, certain streets like the busy Rue de Rivoli filled up with taxis and public transport, nudging children on bikes to the side.

Hidalgo, launching the event with other mayors who have already pioneered car-free days, including the mayor of Brussels, said the initiative showed people “are not obliged to move around in a personal car, there are other ways to approach mobility in a city”.

Cylists from a bike collective, Vélorution, gathered at the Place de la République and cycled together, not through the car-free zone but through the streets where cars were allowed, to make their point.

Camille Carnoz of the collective, said: “Today is symbolic, it’s about giving people a dream, showing us what a city could look like without cars, a type of utopia. But we need to go further, with more and larger cycle routes, better parking spots for bicycles, slower speed limits. There’s a lot to be done.”

Boris Najman, a university economics professor who was taking part in the Vélorution cycle with his four- and seven-year-old children, said: “We notice the pollution in terms of our children’s health, which is so much better when we’re away by the sea. Today should be about really thinking about changing habits. Going car-free is possible in Paris: it’s a small city, it’s very dense, it has a lot of good public transport. It can happen.”

Alex Copin, dressed as Spider-Man, was leading 1,000 longboard skateboarders on a tour of the car-free streets. “It’s just so nice to not have to practice this sport with exhaust pipes pumping out at us. It’s nice to have the road to ourselves in such a beautiful city.”

At the Place de Châtelet, a four-lane roundabout which is normally one of central Paris’s grimiest traffic points, Cathie Ventalon, a yoga teacher, was laying out yoga mats in the middle of the deserted street and preparing to teach a class in the sunshine. “It’s about reappropriating the public space and breathing better. We can even hear the fountain, which is normally drowned out by traffic noise,” she said.

Nicolas Maille, who works in communications for a TV station, was stretching out on his mat. “I’ve noticed people in the city centre just seem so happy without the cars. It’s like a Jacques Tati film of the 1950s, everyone’s on a bike and smiling. It’s incredible to see.”

Originally published by The Guardian