Under a French government pilot program called " a day in town without my car," habitual drivers were pressed to leave their cars at home and rediscover the pleasures of walking, cycling, scootering, riding buses and subways and breathing cleaner air. Private cars were banned from many parts of Paris. The brainchild of Dominique Voynet, the French Environment minister and France's leading Green, the 14-hour experiment on Tuesday was greeted with varying degrees of approval, impatience, cynicism and outrage.