Paris stinks: City's love affair with diesel makes it one of the world's most polluted
Reliance on the fuel questioned, especially after last week's revelations about Volkswagen cars
Guidebooks rarely mention it, but Paris is one of the most polluted cities in the rich world. The Eiffel Tower is periodically shrouded in smog, and there's one key culprit: France's disproportionately heavy reliance on diesel fuel.
Critics are increasingly questioning the need for diesel vehicles, especially after last week's discovery that Volkswagen tricked drivers worldwide into thinking their diesel engines were much cleaner than they really are.
Paris' diesel-driven pollution problem is especially embarrassing for a city that's trying to be environmentally exemplary as it prepares to host crucial UN talks in two months on reducing emissions.
City authorities banned all traffic from central Paris for one day on Sunday and are trying to gradually forbid diesel altogether, as they try to clean up the capital's image.
But a nationwide crackdown on diesel remains taboo. And elsewhere in Europe - where the majority of new cars run on diesel engines versus just one-seventh worldwide - few are raising the alarm.
"We must stop lying to the French by inciting them to buy so-called environmentally friendly cars," Emmanuelle Cosse, head of France's green party Europe Ecologie-les Verts, said last week. "Clean diesel doesn't exist."
