Ten people were arrested. “For the time being it changes nothing, UberPOP can continue to operate”, the head of Uber France, Thibaud Simphal, told the BFM Business channel. It is valued in excess of $40 billion.
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Cannes Lions faced disruption today after taxi drivers blockaded Nice Airport in protest against the ride-hailing service Uber. Dozens of passengers lined the roads, with some scrambling up slopes and across motorway barriers, a Reuters witness said.
Images from around the city captured a sense of the taxis’ rage, with an Uber-style livery auto overturned, others with tires slashed and windshields covered with a web of cracks.
Police eventually fired teargas to break up the protest on the western stretch of the ring road around the capital and cleared burning tyres.
PARIS (AP) – French taxi drivers pulled out the throttle in an all-out confrontation with the ultra-cheap Uber vehicle service Thursday, smashing livery cars, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic during a nationwide strike that caught tourists and celebrities alike in the mayhem.
She appealed to the French president in another message, writing “Francois Hollande where are the fucking police???” In response, some 2,800 cabbies blocked access to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports late into the afternoon, forcing travelers to get there by foot.
Cab drivers in France and elsewhere have become increasingly vocal critics of Uber, which they see as having an unfair advantage.
The country’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced a ban on the company’s online server, UberPOP, which connects drivers with customers and called on prosecutors and police to do more to crack down on the service.
He said: “The government won’t ever accept the law of the jungle”.
According to the law, Cazeneuve said, UberPOP is illegal and its drivers risk prison terms and the confiscation of their vehicles.
He called a meeting of French anti-fraud officials for Monday to put in place measures to “immediately” stop illegal taxis from servicing customers.
Uber said that it is up to the courts to decide what is legal and that no court has so far told it to stop operating.
They say they are being unfairly undercut by Uber drivers, who don’t have to pay license fees.
Several other European cities, including Amsterdam and Berlin, have banned some Uber services, saying they don’t comply with local transportation regulations.
In recent weeks, Uber’s low-priced service has expanded beyond Paris.
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“Passengers aren’t the target, but I would be extremely scared if I was an Uber driver”.
