France’s interior minister called for a nationwide legal clampdown on UberPOP yesterday, siding with taxi drivers who blockaded major transport hubs in angry protests against the US online ridesharing service.
Arguing that the service represented unfair competition, cabbies blocked roads to the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Orly airports, prompting operator Aeroports de Paris to warn travellers to use local train services.
“Access by road is completely blocked,” the company said on its website. “The only way to get to CDG is (by train).”
French TV showed images of burning tires blocking part of the ring road around Paris, overturned vehicles, and scuffles between cabbies and other drivers. Police in riot gear at one point intervened using tear gas.
Cabbies set up barriers around Marseilles and Aix-en-Provence in southeast France, including at motorway exits, and blocked access to train stations in the two cities.
In a toughening of the French stance, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve ordered Paris police to issue a decree banning the activity of UberPOP, “given the serious public order disturbances and development of this illegal activity.”
He also ordered local police chiefs and prosecutors to clamp down on what he said was a failure by Uber to pay social and tax charges in France.
Uber spokesman Thomas Meister accused Cazeneuve of over-riding the normal legal process. “The way things work in a state of law is that it’s for the justice to judge whether something is legal or illegal,” he said.
