That’s a bit of a simplification. There is also an elected government for the Paris region. It just has fewer powers than most big-city governments. So yes, suburbanites get an unusually small say in what happens in the city center. But the inverse is true too - central residents get less of a say in what happens in the suburbs. The issue is that, like in any city, much of car traffic across the center comes from the suburban periphery, where people own cars and use them. That is clearly an injustice for the central residents, who have to suffer the externalities of those cars. In this case the quirky institutional setup allowed those residents to put their foot down and say no, so that is unsurprisingly what they did.
That’s a bit of a simplification. There is also an elected government for the Paris region. It just has fewer powers than most big-city governments. So yes, suburbanites get an unusually small say in what happens in the city center. But the inverse is true too - central residents get less of a say in what happens in the suburbs. The issue is that, like in any city, much of car traffic across the center comes from the suburban periphery, where people own cars and use them. That is clearly an injustice for the central residents, who have to suffer the externalities of those cars. In this case the quirky institutional setup allowed those residents to put their foot down and say no, so that is unsurprisingly what they did.
True, I simplified because a lot of people outside of France don’t know how large Paris is.