Group portrait of Alumni: cycling mobility

Cycling mobility is a more than topical subject today, especially after this period of confinement. The 5 portraits below are complementary and present cycling mobility as a whole as a vector of change for society in all areas.

Louis Belenfant : Advocacy, infrastructure and security.

A graduate of Sciences Po Lille, promotion George Orwell (2012), major in Public-private partnership and a master's in Journalism from ESJ Lille, Louis is director of the Collectif Vélo Ile-de-France.

“The bicycle is a vector of change in society. We manage to tackle a lot of themes: What is a city? What is living together in a city? What is a pleasant city to live in? What is the inclusive city? "

His journey

When he left ESJ in 2014, he worked for 3 years as a freelance writer at Radio France.

In 2017, he left, for a year, on a round trip by bike, from Paris to Kyrgyzstan.

Following his trip, he decides to devote himself to his passion, cycling. He hears about a position at MDB (Better to move around on a bicycle) as an advocacy officer. He was then in charge of lobbying to promote bicycle mobility as a daily mode of travel.

After a year, he became director, created a new structure, the Collectif Vélo Ile-de-France and brought together all 33 cycling associations in the region. His time was shared between team management, public relations to elected officials, technicians and associated project setup, as well as associative animation: train volunteers to become better bicycle lobbyists, teach them how to lead a strategy and train them on how to talk to elected officials and to the media.

Today, in the Paris region, we can no longer ignore cycling. 2/3 of trips are short and over a distance of less than 3 km, but the public transport network is saturated. The bicycle finds all its relevance there.

Louis recently carried out the RER bike project: Regional express network of cycle paths for the Ile-de-France region. 9 lines are designed and submitted to the region. She decides to finance the project to the tune of 300 million euros and to subsidize it at 60%.

Deconfinement has also seen the blooming of several transitory cycle paths: the corona tracks. They were devised a month before deconfinement and submitted to communities in order to respond to the issue of user safety, offer them infrastructures that connect and make cycling obvious.

"The collective ensures that all the infrastructures, on which we would let our child or grandmother run, meet the issue of safety. "

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Joseph D'Halluin : Between advocacy and management of non-profit organizations.

Joseph graduated from Sciences Po Lille, promotion of the Unknown Soldier (2014), major in Sustainable Development.

Committed to the issue of cycling, Joseph believes that increasing the use of cycling is potentially a way to change society as a whole:

"Fostering the development of cycling is a way of gradually greening the rest of society by changing the relationship to the world, to speed, to time, to work and to public space ..."

His journey

First president and co-founder of the cycling collective of Sciences Po Lille in 2013 (La Pedale Palienne), Joseph was already interested in bicycle mobility during his studies and made his 4th year thesis on the V’Lille.

At the end of his end-of-study internship at Departments & Cycling Regions, he continued his momentum for a little over 2 years as a researcher. Newly renamed Vélo et Territoires, this federation of communities (regions, departments, intercommunalities) is working to make the bicycle a fully-fledged mobility tool and of France a great cycling nation.

In September 2016, he followed up on a civic service at the Maison du Vélo in Lyon, where he gave cycling lessons to women from immigrant backgrounds.

After 7 months, he becomes president of the association and will continue this volunteer commitment at the local level for 2 years. Joseph supports the associative project, supervises the employee team and the activities carried out by the structure such as learning mobility by bicycle for adults and children, the fight against theft, self-repair assistance, 'support for cycle mobility for businesses and communities.

During the same period, he extended his voluntary commitment to the national level as a member of the French Federation of Bicycle Users (FUB), a federation bringing together all cycling associations in France. He was quickly appointed member of the bureau as secretary general. Its activities revolve around internal life (HR and strategic choices), the management of non-profit organizations and local and national advocacy.

From September 2017 to June 2018, ahead of the vote on the orientation and mobility law, he met with the president of the FUB, Olivier Schneider, parliamentarians, called upon deputies and senators and took part in consultation meetings organized by the government.

In May 2018, Joseph participated in the filing of the summary proceedings with the Council of State against the explicit ban on cycling inside the authorized perimeter during confinement.

In addition to his volunteer commitments, he is from January 2018 to January 2019, adviser to the CESER of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (Regional Economic, Social and Environmental Council) and since September 2018, parliamentary assistant.

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Chloé Bouilloux : towards a more responsible economic model.

Graduated from Sciences Po Lille, promotion Romain Gary (2013), major in Public-private partnerships, Chloé is project manager of the “Véligo Location” cargo bike project at Fluow and, at the same time, resto.paris & courier project manager at Olvo.

"Cycling allows me to discover the city differently and to better appropriate it! It is a vector of emancipation."

Her journey

The subject of mobility caught his attention during his third year in Santiago de Chile. She is shocked to discover a saturated public transport system despite the modernity of this city. She then became interested in public transport policies and chose to pursue a master's degree in partnership with the Lille urban planning institute, transport option.

On leaving Sciences Po Lille, the trend is towards the development of companies offering carpooling, dynamic hitchhiking, micro mobility (free-floating, self-service bicycles and scooters), car-sharing solutions, etc.

In August 2014, she was recruited by Algoé as a senior ecomobility and collaborative projects consultant. The challenge is to encourage modal shift to reduce the environmental impact of car use. She works on all issues of public-private interfacing, the financing of these solutions and the incentives for changing mobility behavior.

After 4 years, Chloé feels the need to move on to the field in the field of cycling, to understand how a mobility service works in practice. In October 2018, she landed at Vélogik as operations manager. Vélogik is a bicycle maintenance and repair company. She is in charge of the maintenance organization for the long-term electric-assisted bicycle rental service, Véligo Location. It is the largest fleet in the world with its 20,000 bikes.

In May 2020, she changes position and becomes part-time project manager in the same company. Its mission is to launch a cargo bike rental service in Ile de France. Here again, the link with public institutions is important since it is Ile de France Mobilités which has entrusted the management of this public service to the FLUOW delegatee.

She also works part-time for Olvo, a cyclo logistics cooperative. She makes deliveries by cargo bike and works on the resto.paris project. Resto.paris, an online ordering platform project in an alternative area to Ubereats which brings together restaurants respecting an environmental and societal commitment and committed customers. Unlike other foodtech platforms, resto.paris offers a fairer economic model that promotes the catering and delivery professions.

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Coline Trautmann : High added value self-repair and reuse

A graduate of Sciences Po Lille, Amartya Sen class (2010), major in Conflict Analysis and Peacebuilding, Coline is administrator at L'Heureux Recycling and Coordinator at Bretz’Selle.

"I sincerely believe that the bicycle is the subject in which I can never be bored because it touches almost all subjects: health, gender, town planning, the question of living together, the model of collective life that we choose ... We will never have been around! "

Her journey

At the national level, she is the administrator of the network of self-repair workshops. These are small autonomous structures specializing in recycling, which have all emerged in clusters since the beginning of 2010 and which today constitute a network of almost 250,000 members in France grouped together in nearly 300 associations. These workshops promote cycling through individual mechanical autonomy and support for medium-long term change.

The condition of self-repair is that you never repair for someone else. Unlike a repairer, there will be no support for the bike, appointment, ticket ... There may be a diagnosis but it will be done jointly. On the other hand, each repair benefits from support: "The basic principle is that everyone should be able, for a few euros, to put a saddle back on their bike, a pair of brake pads, and to be able to go to their bicycle. night service at 4.30am where there is no bus anyway and there is no other solution than to rely on your bicycle. "

The incentive to re-use with high added value with the acquisition of skills allows parts to be effectively reused rather than replaced by new. The challenge is that the bicycle is no longer used only for leisure trips but also as part of regular longer-distance trips.

Each workshop has a small structure which makes it possible to welcome new projects very quickly. This organization makes it possible to be quickly innovative at the local level and thus to find simple solutions that are more easily replicable to the entire network: "The projects are certainly small but they are very quick to set up. We quickly see the results. "

Coline is active in the self-repair workshop in Strasbourg Bretz’Selle and has participated in several projects such as composting organic waste with Strasbourg restaurateurs, which includes bicycle logistics; or the development of specific techniques to be able to do mechanics around disability (development of an acoustic approach to mechanics for the visually impaired and training of several people in this type of profession).

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Mehdi Zainoune : cycling as an educational and professional integration tool

A graduate of Sciences Po Lille, promotion Soldat Inconnu (2014) and of the Conflicts and Development major, Mehdi is deputy coordinator of the Solidarity Bike Workshops at SoliCycle.

"Our core business remains integration. We are trying to reintegrate people into the traditional world of work. If it's because of the bike, that's good. Cycling is at the service of professional integration. "

His journey

He was already interested in cycling mobility when he joined Sciences Po Lille as a founding member of the association La Pédale Palienne.

After 1 year at Aide et Action, he applied for the Etudes et Chantiers Ile de France association. It carries integration projects in several media: green spaces & market gardening (qualifying training) and bicycle mechanics (non-remobilization worksite).

The purpose of this latter support is to help the retraining person develop transversal skills that will be useful for another professional project. These skills range from resuming a pace of work and teamwork to logistics, welcoming the public, collecting money ...

The results are generally 70% of dynamic exits, that is to say positive exits such as obtaining a fixed-term contract of more than 6 months, a permanent contract, a qualifying training or a continuation of career in another association. not necessarily linked to cycling.

He began in 2015 as a technical and educational supervisor at the St Denis workshop.

After two and a half years, he becomes deputy technical coordinator on all sites.

For 5 years, he has been a trainer for the city of Paris on training in cycle mechanics & employment, which has been set up in partnership with ParisFabrik. The idea is to train trainees or people in professional retraining in cycle mechanics but oriented towards re-employment and self-repair. 

4 aspects are developed by the association:

• Production: recovering bicycles abandoned or transferred by their owner, repairing them and reselling them to members of the association.
• Self-repair workshops: teaching the average cyclist how to maintain his bike himself. Every Saturday, a workshop is offered to members. For € 20 / year per household, they have access to tools, advice and spare parts at used prices.
• Outdoor activities: the association travels to communities, businesses and social landlords to offer outdoor self-repair workshops.
• Fleet maintenance as a winter activity: for example, the fleet of 50 bicycles from the town hall of St Denis or the fleet of 1,000 bicycles from the Paris school affairs department.

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Find Mehdi Zainoune's profile in the Sciences Po Lille Alumni directory