Paris is saying ‘non’ to a US-style hellscape of supersized cars – and so should the rest of Europe

Traffic on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France, December 2023. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The United States is in the midst of a full-blown size crisis. No, I’m not talking about the mad rush for Wegovy, which is selling so swiftly that Denmark has to remove data relating to manufacturers Novo Nordisk to measure (the rest of) its economy properly. And no, I’m not talking about … something else. I’m talking about the enormous monstrosities filling up its roads. (Yeah, I see you on the streets of downtown Cleveland alone in your $85,000, 7,000lb Dodge Ram and I can tell you’re not a farmer … maybe that actually says something about the “something else”.)

There are lots of trends, ideas, music and films that cross the Atlantic. Some of them are good. This is not one of them. Neither are the 500 Krispy Kreme “points of access” the American chain is planning to open across France over the next year. (One, OK, fine, for the novelty, but 500 in the next year? In a country that exists in a completely different universe when it comes to pastries?)