A Paris cab with posters reading “Uber get out” parks during a blockade by taxi drivers in Paris
French taxis went on a nationwide strike yesterday, snarling traffic in major cities after weeks of rising and sometimes violent tensions over Uber. Travelers hoping to catch a flight walked alongside the highway, rolling their bags behind them, as riot police fired tear gas canisters to hold back some strikers.
Despite repeated rulings outlawing Uber’s lowest-cost service, its drivers continue to ply French roads and the American company is actively recruiting.
Uber’s more expensive livery service is still legal but a source of intense frustration for taxi drivers, who pay tens of thousands of euros (dollars) for their medallions and who face customer complaints that they are being resistant to changes such as credit cards and geolocation.
Taxi drivers complain that Uber unfairly undercuts them and in recent weeks nearly 100 Uber drivers have been attacked, sometimes while carrying customers. In one case, a taxi passenger was left with a broken face and black eye after he praised Uber.
The government, meanwhile, said nearly 500 legal cases have been filed across France involving complaints about UberPop. The officials reiterated concerns about safety of passengers, insisting they are not protected in case of an accident by an UberPop driver.
“The economy is not the law of the jungle,” Claude Bartolone, head of France’s National Assembly, told BFM television.
Strikers darted by the dozens onto Paris’ ring road near a main entrance to the city, then dashed away as riot police tried to catch them. Liberation newspaper’s deputy director, Johan Hufnagel, said taxi drivers attacked one photographer.
Images from around the city captured a sense of the taxis’ rage, with an Uber-style livery car overturned, others with tires slashed and windshields covered with a web of cracks.
At the airports, police were checking entering cars in hopes of avoiding more violence.
Even Interior Ministry officials admit the emergence of Uber and similar services — which can feature perks such as free bottled water for customers and polite, door-opening drivers, not to mention the chance to pay by credit card — have created a competitive market that has forced changes in the taxi industry. Lori Hinnant, Paris, AP
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