(Reuters) — French taxi drivers started a second day of strikes on Wednesday (January 27) over the competition from private car ride firms like Uber, saying the French government isn’t doing enough to protect their livelihoods.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told taxi driver representatives in a meeting that more efforts would be made to ensure other car ride services respected rules limiting them to pre-booked trips and returning to base after each one.
This measure would help to prevent them skimming off clients at airports and train stations from hail-down regular taxis.
But for Paris cabbie Sofiane Halil, this isn’t enough.
“We are not satisfied by the government, it’s been years since the problem started with VTCs (private chauffeured vehicle services) with the savage opening of the personal transport market. We’ve been hearing the same things, we are told that a mediator will be designated but we’ve already had a mediator, the laws are there but their application is problematic,” he said after having spent the night near the Porte Maillot which saw clashes between angry taxi drivers and police on Tuesday.
The taxi drivers argue that the regulation of other car ride services is not being respected by companies like Uber that do not have to pay as much to set up in business, leading to uneven competition at their expense.
“A VTC is a car which looks like every other car, it’s a driver who looks like any other driver so it’s very hard to control, to target road delinquents or illegal taxis,” said Halil.
Uber has triggered similar protests by taxi drivers from London to New Delhi and led to legal disputes in a number of European countries.
