The “Les Survivants” website, which was behind an anti-abortion campaign on self-service bicycles in Paris last year, has been closed down, Paris City Council said in a press release on Tuesday 13 February.

Last May and June, thousands of stickers were illegally placed on Vélib, the city of Paris’ self-service bicycle hire scheme using the same logo.

Messages such as “And what if you had let him/her live?” were amongst those pasted on the bikes.

In response, the Paris city council launched an information campaign last September to reaffirm the right to abortion, with the numbers and addresses of the various Family Planning centres in the capital.

The city council also referred the matter to the courts, whose investigation led to the site being closed down on Monday (12 February).

“The closure of the Les Survivants website is excellent news for women’s rights”, said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, denouncing a “disinformation website” that “endangers women”.

On X and Instagram, “Les Survivants” collective describes itself in its bio as a “solidarity movement of citizens feeling uncomfortable with the cold elimination of one child in four in France”.

“The closure of this site is the first major victory! [ … ] The public arena in Paris must be the arena for the right to abortion!” Hélène Bidard, deputy mayor of Paris responsible for equality between women and men, youth and popular education, said.

While the website has been shut down, the city of Paris remains determined to pursue its legal action to identify and prosecute the authors of the anti-abortion campaign, the press release reads.

As the Senate is set to study the bill to enshrine abortion in the Constitution from Wednesday (14 February), Hidalgo reiterated her support for this proposal, which also has the backing of French President Emmanuel Macron.

“While we eagerly await the inclusion of the right to abortion in our Constitution, this is a strong signal in favour of equality between women men. Let’s keep going!” she concluded.

In 2022, some 234,300 abortions were recorded in France, according to the Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES).

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