The two unnamed executives were detained on Monday, city prosecutor Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre confirmed to the Associated Press.
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Two Uber executives are taken into custody in France as tension between the ride-hailing service and authorities grow.
The taxi drivers’ worries concerning the huge popularity of Uberpop has led every French TV and radio bulletin since I’ve been here and it’s hard not to feel some sympathy with both sides. France’s interior minister has called on Paris police to enforce a ban on the service, threatening to arrest drivers and seize cars.
They were being questioned as part of a seven-month investigation into Uber in France, which has been declared illegal by French courts and by the French government.
The protest caused a big traffic near the airport where the American singer Courtney Love Cobin was stuck in the chaos.
It neatly expresses the frustration of many people after several days of sometimes violent protests by the country’s taxi drivers. The police started investigating Uber in November 2014 and raided its office in Paris in March 2015.
“They actually use the emotion created by the images of cars torched in Paris during the last strike to surf on a wave of taxi users’ discontent, which is amplified and doesn’t reflect the result of these incidents”, he says. Uber drivers use their own cars and simply pay a proportion of their fares to the company for each passenger they pick up via smartphone.
“We are faced with permanent provocation (from Uber) to which there can only be one response: total firmness in the systematic seizure of offending vehicles”, G7 taxi firm head Serge Metz told BFM TV.
Cazeneuve banned UberPop in the Paris region.
The spokesman refers to the change in prices that Uber offers since it is significantly lower than the regular taxi companies.
IBTimes United Kingdom has asked for a comment from Uber and will update this article when we get a reply.
That’s why taxi drivers protested against UberPOP last week, asking for a real unequivocal ban. The Madrid commercial court judge said in a preliminary ruling that Uber drivers lacked proper permits to transport passengers in Spain.
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Beyond the recent protests, Uber has also been under scrutiny in France for possibly being in violation of the country’s 1978 data protection law.
