After Protest, France Cracks Down On Uber

An anonymous reader writes: Just a day after taxi drivers began a high-profile protest of Uber in France, the nation's interior minister has issued a ban on the car-sharing service UberPop. The minister stated that the service was illegal, and ordered police to begin seizing vehicles defying the order. French president Francois Hollande agrees that UberPOP "should be dismantled," but says the state isn't legally permitted to seize cars itself without court authorization. "UberPOP is a car-sharing service offered by Uber, which brings together customers and private drivers at prices lower than those charged by both traditional taxi firms and even other Uber services. UberPOP differs because it allows non-professional drivers to register their car and transport other passengers. It has been illegal in France since January, but the law has proved difficult to enforce and the service continues to operate, AFP news agency reports."

Comments

why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[Noah Haders]

I heard that protesters were flipping cars over and smashing windows. Perhaps they should be the ones cracked down upon? This hasty reaction to appease the angry mob seems like the wrong message you would want to send. Unless France wants to encourage angry mobs...

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[Anonymous Coward]

In defense of taxi drivers, their perceived quality of service aside, wouldn't you be just as pissed off it you had to pay $250,000 for a taxi medallion only to have people doing your job without buying one? I believe Paris set up the medallion system to ease congestion many years ago when there were too many taxis. So after creating an artificial market for taxi medallions they all of a sudden are tolerating what are essentially taxis without medallions. Seems to me the only thing to do is ban UberPop or buy back every taxi medallion.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[aardvarkjoe]

From where exactly? Strange that you provide not a single source for this claim.

Perhaps this source will help.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[u19925]

When I was small, some private company wanted to start bus service in my city, but government struck down the proposal. The government buses serve non-profitable and profitable areas. They make profit in one area and subsidize another. Private player would only operate in profitable area causing either a loss or winding down operation in non-profitable area.

Case with Uber is similar. Registered taxi services have to carry passengers at pre-determined rate. Sometimes it is not profitable specially if a customer stays in area from which you don't easily get return passengers. This gets compensated when you customer and return as well. With Uber, they will charge more or less based on the analytics and eventually registered taxi drivers would lend up serving less profitable areas and more profitable routes will be undercut by Uber. If Uber is allowed, it should have the exact same requirements: Publish fare, must take customers at this rate irrespective of where you want to go and should take passengers strictly in the order in which requests are incoming. Otherwise, it is giving unfair advantage to Uber over taxi service.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[Noah Haders]

If Uber is allowed, it should have the exact same requirements: Publish fare, must take customers at this rate irrespective of where you want to go and should take passengers strictly in the order in which requests are incoming. Otherwise, it is giving unfair advantage to Uber over taxi service.

In the US, this is exactly how Uber operates. The fare is fixed. It varies by area, but in LA it's about a dollar per mile and 20 cents per min. When you order the uber ride, the driver accepts before he knows where you're going. I've never had a driver tell me "no I won't go there" and I'm pretty sure they would be cut off if they did that.

Your taxi analogy is flawed, because taxi drivers can serve whatever areas they want, regardless of what Uber does.

The main difference in my eyes in why Uber is cheaper is because taxis are set up so people have a career as a taxi driver, but uber is set up for temporary work. So with uber people don't worry about job longevity, or living wage, or health insurance.

But honestly, even if uber were the same price as taxis I would take them way more often because the uber passenger experience is so much NICER. This is a fact and it is a shame that the taxi companies have not tried to step up their game, and instead are looking for regulatory interference to save the day.

Also, it's fair to say that while uber is cheaper than cabs I use the service a whole bunch more, so my total "cab expenditures" in a year is much greater on uber than it was with cabs.

But the biggest point that I'm making is that cabs are 90% NASTY while uber is just 20% NASTY. I like Lyft the best, which is just 5% NASTY.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[ArmoredDragon]

Well at least we can now distinguish protest from celebration, because it seems that in France, setting your neighbors car into a blazing inferno is a sign of celebration.

http://europe.newsweek.com/940...

So there you have it:

Car flipped, somebody is angry.
Car burned, somebody is happy.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[HairyNevus]

grande launchers

Like a T-Shirt cannon, but shoots medium-sized espresso drinks at people? Genius! By jove, AC, you've done it again.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[cayenne8]

Well at least we can now distinguish protest from celebration, because it seems that in France, setting your neighbors car into a blazing inferno is a sign of celebration.

Same thing happens in the US when a more urban city's sports teams win a championship it seems....

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[ADRA]

1. That is Europe, the home of angry mobs that get shit done, unlike the US where protestors wimper in the corner and accomplish essentially nothing (blame / support your political systems for reenforcing said outcomes)
2. They were protesting the lack of enforcing a law on the books, so its hard to complain about their reasoning.

If you want to complain about banning uber or supporting them, then for fuck sakes do it.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[hey!]

Talking to the French about their rioting is like talking to Americans about their guns. They'll assume you're out to undermine their national origin myths.

Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters?

[Half-pint HAL]

The main difference in my eyes in why Uber is cheaper is because taxis are set up so people have a career as a taxi driver, but uber is set up for temporary work. So with uber people don't worry about job longevity, or living wage, or health insurance.

...which is surely a problem for everyone...?

Labour laws exist to serve the principle of an honesty day's pay for an honest day's work. If we allow certain parties to engage in commercial activity but excuse them from labour laws nased on "it's not their main source of income", then we're back on the race to the bottom, even as we're just finally getting rid of unpaid internships.

competition...

[verbatim]

When you can't compete, legislate.
When you can't legislate, riot.
When you can't riot... erm...

Oh well.

Require licenses for commercial driving or not?

[captaindomon]

At the heart of the matter, it comes down to being fair. If you want to require people that drive customers commercially to go through additional training, insurance, licensing, inspections, etc. then you should require Uber drivers to do that as well. If you don't want to require that, then taxi drivers should not be required to do any licensing either. But you can't enforce licensing on taxis and ignore it with Uber drivers.

Re:Require licenses for commercial driving or not?

[Chalnoth]

Yes. And there's also the issue that Uber drivers are paid at such low rates that many barely break even after vehicle maintenance is taken into account.

Re:A case of out of control Liberals

[Blaskowicz]

There's no 75% tax rate and liberals means "right wing" here (including the current government)

You go! France!

[Anonymous Coward]

the ONLY thing Uber is sharing is the massive profits it makes that are distributed to the top of the chain. What a life-sucking company this is, breaking the law at will! Jail every single board member and senior executive of this outlaw company!

If the Interior Ministry is upset about disruption

[tlambert]

If the Interior Ministry is upset about disruption of commerce, perhaps they should crack down on the taxi drivers?

Taxi money brakedown

[sectokia]

I don't know about France but in Australia the taxi system typically operates line this: Taxi gets in $200,000 per year in fairs across two driver shifts running pretty between 24/7 and 22/6. Cost are typically $30,000 per year (car, maintenance, fuel, insurance). Each of two drivers earns at most $35,000 per year. The owner of the cabs licence takes the left over $100,000 per year. Most of the licences have been brought up by one our two big companies in each state. The owners typically pay $8,000 per year to be part of the cab company who issue the jobs and keep the drivers getting fairs. Needless to say with half the money going to artificial licence holder, uber can easily under cut taxi prices. I suspect in a free market taxi prices would decrease at least 40%. The drivers themselves are tricked mainly by the rich licence holder into thinking that uber will take there jobs and threaten their messag megre pay. Of course in reality if it's the licence holders who are the only ones who attend to lose anything. Taxi licencing are regulation is often favored by the left. Uber is interesting because it exposes that even though the left are meant to be progressive they draw the line at labor regulation, and will stand fast on the side of entrenched interests of regulated industries.

Uber != car sharing

[plopez]

They are a global taxi service with centralized command and control. A taxi service which does not want to be treated as a taxi service. The only difference is they use a smart phone app as a dispatcher.

They lie about what they are and elicit sympathy for the 'little guy' to rip off the little guy. I will use the independents instead, thank you.

Re:Uber != car sharing

[tompaulco]

Taxi companies don't want to compete with Uber though, they just want to outlaw them and go back to their monopoly.

They don't want or need to outlaw Uber. Uber is already illegal. All the taxis want is for the competition to have obey the same laws, which legally they do. In practice, Uber chooses not to obey the law.

Slashdot is broken.

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Seriously. Slashdot is broken. On Android, the fucking story section icon and comment count have been rendering over the top of the headline recently. Does anyone even beta test this shit? (Also, apologies for using the word beta. Fuck beta.)

F***sck Uber and others

[kosmosik]

I'am posting this from Warsaw, Poland. Taxi business here is OK I guess as a client - there are just a loads of taxis everywhere, you can call you favourite and it will come in 10 minutes - always. And it is great. Local regulations require that TAXI to be called TAXi is to have a license - fare with these guys is regulary between 2,60-1,50 (per kilometer +"shutting door" fare). There are also "people transfer" services which are like TAXI but are not formaly these but private lines - they can't have TAXI sign on car but would use something like TAKSI and so on. Also there is a law that anybody who can transport 7 people (large vans with seatings in back) can operate as private transporter. Also you have the thing called "Night Drivers" and it is like a person transfer (legally) but usually somebody with really fancy car shows up and drives you - and then gives you their card so you call them more often.

This is a mess I guess but if you know the differences you can pick the best way for you (which in my case is registered cheapest TAXI - since they can use exclusive lanes for them).

And there also was a case in Kraków in which the city forbided non registered taxis - so they operated as psychological services (sic! - you drive you get an advice). Etc.

Nevertheless I love taxi-and similar services in my city (Warsaw) - I can order whatever the fuck I want. :) TAXI, private transfer, Uber etc. - and get home....

So in my opinion Uber has no chance here (with their 1/4 provision going just about using the app - fuck you uber - clients PAY for tha) since you can get cheap rides anyway... Uber is only strong where old-school style city-regulated TAXIs are strong.