Parisians overwhelmingly voted Sunday to banish the French capital's ubiquitous for-hire electric scooters from their streets, delivering a blow to operators and a victory for road safety campaigners.

The 15,000 opinion-dividing mini-machines are now expected to vanish from central Paris at the end of August when the city's contracts with the three operators expire.

The referendum means the City of Light, once a pioneer in embracing e-scooter services, is set to become the only major European capital to outlaw the widespread devices booked on apps such as Lime.

However, e-scooter operators said on Monday they hoped to stop the plan.

The question City Hall asked voters in a citywide mini-referendum on Sunday was: "For or against self-service scooters in Paris?"

The result wasn't close. City Hall said just over 103,000 people voted, with 89% rejecting e-scooters and just 11% supporting them.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hailed the consultative referendum as a success and said its outcome was "very clear."

"There will no longer be any self-service scooters in Paris from Sept.1," she said.

The vote had been open to all of Paris' 1.38 million registered voters, but the low turnout – just 7.4% of those registered – has been criticized by the scooter companies, which say they hoped Hidalgo would seek a compromise.

"This unprecedented referendum... was heavily impacted by very restrictive voting methods. This led to an extremely low turnout, heavily skewed towards older age groups, which has widened the gap between pros and cons," said a joint statement from Lime, Dott and Tier.

"We regret that Parisians will lose a shared and green transport option... It is a step back for sustainable transport in Paris ahead of the 2024 Olympics," it added.

"We remain hopeful that we can continue to work with Mayor Hidalgo to adopt sensible regulations instead of a ban on e-scooters, and avoid a step backward for Paris," a spokesperson for Lime said on Monday.

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune, seen as a possible contender for the mayor's post in 2026, said on BFM television the vote was "a massive democratic flop."

Scattered around Paris, easy to locate and hire with a downloadable app and relatively cheap, the scooters are a hit with tourists who love their speed and the help-yourself freedom they offer.

In the five years since their introduction, following in the wake of shared cars and shared bicycles, for-hire scooters have also built a following among some Parisians who don't want or can't afford their own but like the option to escape the metro and other public transport.

But many Parisians complain that e-scooters are an eyesore and a traffic menace, and the micro-vehicles have been involved in hundreds of accidents, some fatal.

They have operated in Paris since 2018, but following complaints about their anarchic deployment, Paris 2020 cut the number of operators to three.

It gave them a three-year contract, required that scooters' speeds be capped at 20 km/hour and imposed designated scooter parking areas, similar to restrictions being imposed in other cities worldwide. The current contracts run until September.

In 2021, 24 people died in scooter-related accidents in France, including one in Paris. Last year, Paris registered 459 accidents with e-scooters and similar vehicles, including three fatal ones.

"In my work, we see a lot of road accidents caused by scooters, so we really see the negative effects," general physician Audrey Cordier, 38, told Reuters after voting against the scooters.

Some voters said they would prefer tighter regulations than an outright ban.

"I don't want scooters to do whatever they want on pavements, but banning them is not the priority," Pierre Waeckerle, 35, said.

Hidalgo and some of her deputies campaigned to banish the "free-floating" rental flotilla – so-called because scooters are picked up and dropped off around town at their renters' whim – on safety, public nuisance and environmental cost-benefit grounds before the capital hosts the Olympic Games next year.

"We're happy. It's what we've been fighting for over four years," said Arnaud Kielbasa, the co-founder of the Apacauvi charity, representing victims of e-scooter accidents.

"All Parisians say they are nervous on the pavements, nervous when they cross the roads. You need to look everywhere," Kielbasa, whose wife and infant daughter were hit by an e-scooter driver, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "That's why they've voted against them."