> They have true dedicated bike lanes in Paris. Taken from the car lanes to reduce most streets to 2 lanes. The only things allowed on the sidewalks are people, pets, prams, and cafe tables and chairs.
FWIW the only things allowed on bike lanes are bicycles[0] and tricycles. Motorised cycles (including e-scooters or ebikes) are not allowed and should be on the road (if they're legal at all, which e-scooters often are not as they don't fit the motorbike standards e.g. no license plates, etc…).
[0] this includes EN15194 LEV: pedal-assistance only, under 250W continuous rated power, 25km/h assistance cutoff
Is that only true in France? Bird and Lime capped their scooters to 15mph in my city so they can be considered bicycle-type vehicles by traffic law (and not a moped that you need to register and get a license plate and insurance for). The apps even recommend you stay in bike lanes wherever possible. When they first appeared out of thin air in my city, limes had the muscle to go 20mph (birds didn't have the oomph to break 15 unless going downhill).
To the extent that anything not obviously / actually a bicycle and not covered by EN15194 (mandating that pedelecs be legally considered bicycles) is left entirely to each country's devices, yes: the stuff above is french law (current as of now, a law passed early this year to make e-scooters legal under various constraints from September).
Other jurisdiction could have other laws / criteria yielding different results e.g. I think in Switzerland s-pedelec (faster and throttle-activated) can and must use bike lanes, but are limited to pure pedalling in pedestrian zone. Apparently your jurisdiction is based around speed capabilities, IIRC Belgium is similar, if devices can't go above a certain speed they're treated the same as bicycles.
FWIW the only things allowed on bike lanes are bicycles[0] and tricycles. Motorised cycles (including e-scooters or ebikes) are not allowed and should be on the road (if they're legal at all, which e-scooters often are not as they don't fit the motorbike standards e.g. no license plates, etc…).
[0] this includes EN15194 LEV: pedal-assistance only, under 250W continuous rated power, 25km/h assistance cutoff