Uber Technologies Inc is facing multiple investigations in France, as its low-cost taxi service inflames tensions around the country, a top security official said yesterday.
French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve spoke to RTL radio a day after striking taxi drivers threw travel plans across the country into chaos, attacking Uber livery cars and setting fire to tires on a major arterial road around Paris.
Cazeneuve banned UberPop in the Paris region. It is already banned elsewhere in France, but Uber officials insisted they would continue their activities until the nation’s highest court rules on the service — an attitude Cazeneuve called “cynical and arrogant.”
Photo: Bloomberg
French President Francois Hollande yesterday condemned violent protests against ride-booking app Uber, but he said the service should be taken off the road.
Hollande described the demonstrations as “unacceptable violence in a democracy, in a country like France.”
However, while attending an EU leaders summit in Brussels, he added: “UberPOP should be dissolved and declared illegal.”
Photo: AFP
About 3,000 taxi drivers took part in the strike on Thursday, blocking access to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, and preventing cars reaching train stations across the country.
Ten people were arrested, seven police officers were injured and 70 vehicles were damaged in clashes between Uber drivers and taxi drivers.
Travelers going to and from the airport were forced to walk alongside highways with their bags, while others, including US celebrity Courtney Love, had their cars set upon by striking taxi drivers.
“They’ve ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage,” Love said on Twitter. “They’re beating the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I’m safer in Baghdad.”
The French government was aghast, with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls saying: “These incidents give a deplorable image to visitors of our country.”
Taxi drivers justified their rage, saying Uber’s lowest-cost service UberPop was ruining their livelihoods. Despite repeated rulings against it and a law promulgated in October last year that explicitly outlaws UberPop, its drivers continue to ply French roads and the US ride-hailing firm is actively recruiting drivers and passengers alike. Uber claims to have a total of 400,000 customers per month in France.
Cazeneuve rushed back from a trip to Marseille to meet with taxi unions, saying afterward that UberPop must be shut down and its vehicles seized if caught by police carrying passengers. He said that 70 vehicles had been damaged in Thursday’s protests and 10 people were arrested.
Cazeneuve said he would meet with UberPop officials to tell them their service is illegal.
“It must, therefore, be closed,” he said. “The government will never accept the law of the jungle.”
He ordered a meeting of French anti-fraud officials on Monday to put in place measures to immediately stop illegal taxis from servicing customers. Only a decision by the French Ministry of Justice can ban the app for UberPop, he said.
Earlier, Cazeneuve ordered an immediate ban on unlicensed drivers in the Paris region.
That did not faze Uber France general manager Thibaud Simphal, who said on RTL radio he was telling his drivers “to continue.”
He said that thus far the justice system “has not demanded that UberPop be forbidden.”
In France, in recent weeks, nearly 100 Uber drivers have been attacked, sometimes while carrying customers, a scenario repeated on Thursday.
“There are people who are willing to do anything to stop any competition,” Uber spokesman Thomas Meister said. “We are only the symptom of a badly organized market.”
The French government, meanwhile, said nearly 500 legal cases had been filed across the country involving complaints over UberPop. Officials raise concerns about passenger safety, insisting they are not protected in case of an accident by an UberPop driver.
Additional reporting by AFP
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