Ride-sharing service Uber has exited the French market following taxi driver protests, a ban by the French interior minister, and the arrest of two managers:
Following a week of increasingly violent clashes with traditional taxi drivers, the San Francisco-based company announced that its popular Uberpop service would be suspended from 8pm tonight and would no longer appear on users' app lists.
'In recent weeks intimidation and violent aggression by an out-of-control minority, where drivers and users of Uberpop were ambushed, has increased in France. Uber does not want to put drivers or passengers at risk, so for the sake of peace has decided to suspend Uberpop,' said the company in a statement. However, the service is in fact illegal in France. Last week, Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, general manager for Western Europe, and Thibaud Simphal, general manager of Uber France, were arrested. They will have their day in court in September.
Uber said it hoped to be back up and running as soon as possible. It thanked the "thousands of men and women from Lille to Marseille, via Paris, Bordeaux or Lyon who participated with enthusiasm in the urban transport revolution".
Related Stories
French taxi drivers are the latest to protest the entry of Uber into their protected market. Their protests feature vandalism and blocking roads. From the AP story:
French taxi drivers pulled out the throttle in an all-out confrontation with the ultra-cheap Uber car service Thursday, smashing livery cars, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic during a nationwide strike that caught tourists and celebrities alike in the mayhem.
[...] Taxi drivers justified their rage, saying Uber's lowest-cost service UberPop was ruining their livihoods.[sic]
[...] Anger seethed across France, with riot police chasing strikers from Paris' ring road, where protesters torched tires and swarmed onto exit ramps during rush hour on the busy artery that leads to Charles de Gaulle airport. In Toulouse in the southwest, angry taxi drivers dumped flour onto UberPop cars, tires were burned in Nantes in the west, and in Lyon, in the southeast, roads were blocked.
Compare this to Uber protests in London.
Vive le monopole!
Original Submission
A court has loosened French transportation regulations by overturning a ban on a key feature used by the Uber ridesharing app:
Car-hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc. won a loosening of France's strict transport rules Wednesday when a court overturned a decree banning car services from showing the locations of available vehicles, a well-known feature of Uber's app.
France's Conseil d'Etat, the country's highest administrative court, struck down the part of a government decree that banned the showing of locations of available cars. The court said providing the locations represents an "information society service." Under European Union law, countries must notify the EU before regulating such services.
Two Uber managers were arrested in Paris back in June.
Previously: French Taxi Drivers Vandalize France to Protest Uber
Uber Leaves France
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:36AM
There is a damn goodvreason that france restricts English-language movies and television.
I studied Russian at Caltech, my instructor was expelled from the Soviet Union rather than imprisoned when she started raising Hell, as her (now) ex-husband was the front-page editor of pravda. My cousin Glenn Thobe soeaks it fluently and traveled extensibely in Russia.
Soviet Coomunism outwardly claimed to be for the benefit of all. In reality, most soviet republics other than russia, georgia, kazakhstan and a few others were brutally repressed.
I meet many Ukrainians in the pacific northwest as it was once a possession of Russia. They are happy at first when I speak to them In Russian but I am now studying Ukranian as it remains painful to this day that the Soviets did not permit Ukrainian to be spoken in their schools, nor I expect their workplaces.
For Uber to just show up in a place like France with the expectation of wild enthusiasm demonstrates a profound ignorance of human nature.
Suppose I were to score with my unicorn's IPO so I would have the cash tp buy up all of san francisco so I could tear down all the buildings to make room for my fruit tree orchard. That kind of agriculture runs deep in my own heritage I dont see why the people of San Francisco should object to me any more than uber has reason to believe that the people of france should object to it.
One Last Word:
France gave us Napoleon. Dont piss off the French.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @02:30AM
>as it remains painful to this day that the Soviets did not permit Ukrainian to be spoken in their schools
Not true. Source: was taught in both under Kiev in 70s. You are full of bull.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:46AM
I have met them all over washinton, oregon and british columbia. Every single one told me they were not permitted to speak Ukrainian in school. They all tell me that while they speak, read and write Russian it is painful for them to do so.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by tftp on Saturday July 04 2015, @07:01AM
Every single one told me they were not permitted to speak Ukrainian in school
Ukrainian was widely used in Soviet times. Many books were printed in Ukrainian. I had some, through my relatives. I did not speak Ukrainian, so I couldn't read them - and that was unfortunate, because the same books in Russian were harder to obtain. I do not know why your acquaintances claim that Ukrainian was outlawed in USSR because it wasn't. Some languages, like of Baltic republics, were used almost exclusively there, and you wouldn't get very far with mere Russian in Riga.
They all tell me that while they speak, read and write Russian it is painful for them to do so.
Your acquaintances don't even see an internal contradiction in this statement. Why would it be "painful" for them to speak Russian if that was the only language they were ever taught and permitted to speak? Did they all learn Ukrainian from Samizdat, overnight? Of course that's not the case - because the national language of each republic was a mandatory course in every republic. The communists made many mistakes, but there is no need to wrongly villify them. USSR's national policy was extremely liberal - more liberal, perhaps, that it was wise. The policy of supporting "national differences" resulted in quite a few wars after 1991, as local dictators quickly used those as a vehicle for separatism and worse things.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday July 04 2015, @08:02AM
I should have thought of something else - songs. Perhaps offtopic, but SN can't be possibly hurt by a small bit of foreign culture :-) Here are a few examples from Soviet times: in Moldavian (1978) [youtube.com], Moldavian (1982) [youtube.com], Moldavian (1984) [youtube.com], Ukrainian (1985) [youtube.com], Ukrainian (1985) [youtube.com], Ukrainian (1971) [youtube.com], Russian (1975) [youtube.com], Russian (1986) [youtube.com] ... I intentionally selected old records, well within the Soviet reign, and only one singer.
Of course, none of that would be possible if the poor natives, denied their language by evil Communists, didn't know their language.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:48AM
For Uber to just show up in a place like France with the expectation of wild enthusiasm demonstrates a profound ignorance of human nature.
Nice story.
BUT You forget that the only french people Uber was un-popular with were Taxi drivers. Other than that the citizens lapped it up in great numbers.
Sort of like Seattle, New York, Chicago, etc.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:44PM
Modded Troll? Don't think so. Wish i had mod points...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday July 04 2015, @09:04PM
You're not making any sense at all with your diatribe and analogy.
Uber isn't taking away a whole city and kicking people out, they're providing a useful service which French people actually want. If French people didn't want it, they wouldn't use the service, and the taxi drivers would have nothing to complain about. The only people being hurt by Uber are the taxi drivers, which isn't any different than the buggy whip makers and sellers being forced out of business by the automobile 100+ years ago. Cry me a river.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Michelle on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:55AM
...on running the lawbreakers out of town.
Now if we could just do it here...
"Right now is the only moment you'll ever have; so why be miserable?"
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:53AM
Or maybe just stop trying to prop up an obsolete business model.
Maybe allow digital dispatching and hailing and paying?
Maybe not all at once, because most of the cabbies I've used lately could barely handle dropping the flag, let alone handling digital device other than the dumb feature phone they talk incessantly on.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday July 04 2015, @08:24AM
Or maybe just stop trying to prop up an obsolete business model.
Too many people - and I don't mean only drivers - live very well off of this "obsolete business model." They do it in Paris and they do it in NYC - they create artificial shortage - a legal monopoly - and then charge high service fees. No surprise that proponents of disruptive technologies are getting kneecapped, with silent or open support of the government. It knows which side their bread is buttered on.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jcm on Saturday July 04 2015, @10:37AM
Well, it's not as simple as you say.
For example, in France, there is a rule called "numerus clausus".
It's used to restrain the number of physicians and specialists.
So every year, only a limited number of people are allowed to exercise.
It's heavily criticized in France because we don't have enough specialists, so the hospitals tend to hire european doctors (mostly from Romania).
Personally, I believe this is used to avoid reducing the salaries of the current specialists.
In fact, the real problem is that Uber encourages tax evasion and destroys jobs.
The french boss of Uber said himself that people working for their service earned 8200 euros yearly, while they had another job.
How much of these 8200 would be declared for taxes ?
Also, more importantly, is working for Uber a real job or not ?
Another problem is the unemployment rate.
If people who "work" for Uber have already another job, and taxi drivers lose their jobs, where do you get new jobs, those that will pay taxes and help community ?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:45PM
So, broken windows fallacy is where you are going then?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @07:18PM
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap01p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap04p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap14p1.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap20p1.html [steshaw.org]
These chapters of 'economics in one lesson' apply.
The boogyman of 'those people might not pay taxes'. Is that my problem? No it is the problem of the gov. Go after the people who didnt pay. Make an example of a couple of people and the rest will fall in line. That is the way thugery works.
Artificial scarcity rarely works out for anyone involved. Unless you are a monopoly.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday July 04 2015, @06:39PM
If people who "work" for Uber have already another job, and taxi drivers lose their jobs, where do you get new jobs, those that will pay taxes and help community ?
You are arguing against efficiency. The community does not win when - as frojack already pointed out - licensed taxi drivers hire thugs who beat up the competition. First, the beatees might be unhappy; second, the community is denied use of thousands additional vehicles at lower price.
Taxes are a more complex matter. Generally speaking, taxes increase, in absolute values, with increase in price of goods and services. If a citizen earned $1000 and paid $300 in income tax, he can keep the remaining $700. If the taxicab is free, that's what he has left at the end of the month. If the taxicab costs him $700/mo, then the citizen has nothing left. At the same time the cab company earned $700 on him and immediately paid 30% of that to the government. Out of the remaining $490 $300 went to the driver, who immediately paid $100 of that to the government and kept $200, and $190 went to buy gas - where the gas station owner earned $190 but immediately paid $70 in taxes... you can already see how much activity was caused by the original citizen spending $700 on taxi. The primary winner here is the state, as it skims off of everyone's revenues.
This means that the state is interested in an economy where nothing is saved and everything is spent. Note that this is a purely financial interest, not a social one. There is no harm to the society if the citizen can teleport himself wherever he wants, for free. But the government of France would have outlawed personal teleports to preserve the taxicab industry, thus acting against interests of the majority. The same would have resulted if in early 1900s cars were outlawed by lobbying by the guild of cabmen and the guild of horse breeders. London would be knee deep in horse waste. Fortunately, governments at that time were not very powerful, but people had more power; for example, a gentleman like Dr. Watson sometimes carried a revolver. Today the governments are strong enough to interfere with low level activities of the people; the power was taken from individuals "for their own good" and given to the state.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday July 04 2015, @09:11PM
One thing you're missing here is that, if the taxicab were free, the citizen would not just keep the remaining $700. He'd go and spend some or all of it on other stuff, such as eating at a restaurant, rent on a nicer place, a new flat-screen TV, some nicer clothes, some more digital toys, etc. All those things also generate tax revenue. So it's short-sighted and stupid for a government to prop up an obsolete monopoly/oligopoly, because the economy can grow larger with newer technologies and services, which can happen more easily when citizens have more spare money to spend on those things. The only rational reason a government would do such a thing is because certain key people in the government are profiting from it, which is the definition of "corruption".
So, in short, it has nothing to do with the power of the state vs. the individual, as you suggest, it's all about good old-fashioned corruption. It's the exact same reason multiple state governments here in the US are trying to ban Tesla from selling cars, because they're in bed with the independent auto dealers.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday July 04 2015, @10:01PM
if the taxicab were free, the citizen would not just keep the remaining $700. He'd go and spend some or all of it on other stuff
Yes; that would convert the argument into the classical "broken glass." The case of not spending the money is more interesting because, first, the money is removed from the economy. Then the quantity of the transactions is reduced, and the tax revenue follows. The money also may be invested with much lower - or zero - taxes. In the latter case the society benefits, but the government is not only not getting the taxes; it also has to pay the coupon.
We are moving toward such a society already; Uber is just one of first, crude attempts to replace cab companies, their radios and their hired drivers with a loose, ever-changing network of minimally affiliated people who work whenever they can. If you extrapolate, all this can be reduced to every human having a universal robot who can do anything, for free. The society of today cannot function in such a world, as every citizen would not need other people or the government. Consider Farmer's the World of Tiers [wikipedia.org]. The governments understand that and fight the change tooth and nail. This is why only socialist countries, where manufacturing already belongs to the society, can painlessly transition to the next phase. Capitalist economies will evolve into a few Companies who own everything, including robots. Unfortunately, Socialism is impossible without some major pruning of the human tree - say, by building an Ark Fleet [geoffwilkins.net] and starting anew.
So, in short, it has nothing to do with the power of the state vs. the individual, as you suggest, it's all about good old-fashioned corruption.
It just depends on what words you choose to describe the same process. Corruption appeals to people who love money; power appeals to people who love power. One hand washes the other; power brings money, and money brings power.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday July 04 2015, @10:26PM
The case of not spending the money may be interesting to you, but it has no bearing on reality whatsoever. If the governments of the US and France got smart and built inexpensive SkyTran systems in all populated areas, rendering not only taxis and most buses obsolete, but also most private cars (particularly those used for commuting) and dealing a severe blow to the carmakers and all the companies that support them (suppliers, dealerships, mechanics, car washes, etc.), people wouldn't suddenly sock all that money away into their bank accounts. They'd spend it on other stuff: they'd buy more luxury goods, take more vacations, both overseas and at home (which means money being spent outside the country, but with all the French and German tourists having this same new savings from transportation, they'd be coming over here and spending their money here to balance it out anyway), eat out more often, hire personal maids or chefs, etc. Even if they increase their savings rate (which is good for economic stability), that money doesn't sit around and do nothing, it gets invested somewhere where it again circulates in the economy, investing into corporations to fund their expansions, etc.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @11:21PM
money that isn't spent is money saved. savings are rarely squandered in a free market (where interest rates aren't artificially fixed at zero) because it is more profitable to invest in capital. if i save money (in a bank account), the bank can use that saving as reserve and lend some of it to a businessman to grow his business by providing him a loan for him to capitalize (by building another factory, buying more computers, etc). the problem with the major economies lately is that there is no savings, so it is hard for businesses to get loans, and to therefore grow. some businesses may not need loans to grow, but for small businesses that would be the rare exception rather than the general rule. lately there is a lot of money printing going on, which might help prop up reserves for business loans, but lately the additional liquidity offered by money printing not only destroys the value of the currency by increasing its quanitity but is merely used to prop up governments (which are notoriously inefficient at spending other people's money), mortgage instruments (many of which have already defaulted) and stocks (many of which are in companies that would be otherwise insolvent, such that the contribution is effectively a bailout). this money, which is mostly going to a very small number of corporate and government oligarchs that are keeeping their savings in offshore accounts on remote islands such that it is generally not being made available to the broader economy is the only thing propping up these failing currencies with little if any commodity reserves (such as gold or silver) to back them up. some of it is in circulation though; saudi arabia, china and russia are spending their foreign reserves on property and other assets. the value of the US dollar in particular is a very small fraction of what it was in 1774 (3% in 2012). greece might look bad, but in hindsight it will have gotten off easy by being forced to get its fiscal house in order. the US will face a much darker day of reckoning down the track (likely triggered from a stock market crash, leading to mass layoffs), which will likely result in widespread violence and poverty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @11:10PM
I knew socialism would be to blame somehow. It's always socialism or communism.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday July 05 2015, @12:24AM
I knew socialism would be to blame somehow. It's always socialism or communism.
If you prefer, you can blame human nature that always poisons the commons.
(Score: 2) by CortoMaltese on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:29PM
In "third world countries" Easy Taxi seems to be booming, you request the taxi though the app, it assigns the closest one to you, and you can see the name and car of the driver, as well as his number plate, photo and cellphone number, no need to be carrying cash as you can pay though your smartphone, very convenient indeed.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:48PM
Yes, digital dispatch and hailing.
Illegal in France and an amazing number of American cities.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @01:05AM
Don't the frogs have laws against organized criminal outfits?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 04 2015, @02:36AM
But who exactly is the organized criminal outfit?
Uber, or the army of immigrant savages resorting to intimidation through violence?
Cucked.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday July 04 2015, @01:24AM
The French weapon of choice: Angry farmer with pitchfork! ;-)
Perhaps it will even keep Putler away? :p
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:49PM
You will to show me your papers, achtung, gesundheit!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 04 2015, @10:58PM
I'll guess German authority person is to be feared..
Perhaps France will load their intercontinental rockets with pitchfork farmers on top for the ultimate deterrence ;-)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by isostatic on Saturday July 04 2015, @06:53AM
Who says terrorism does t work
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @11:47PM
Now all the MPAA have to do is realise that this worked in France, and they can start doing it in the US...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @06:33AM
they have been doing it for years. which rock have you been hiding under?