France Cracks Down On Uber After Protests

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ProTip: When the interior minister says your service is illegal and people are flipping cars and setting them on fire, now might not be a good time to "insist" that your company will continue services in that country.

France's interior minister has ordered a ban on the low-cost car-sharing service UberPOP after a day of nationwide protests by taxi drivers. Bernard Cazeneuve said the service was "illegal" and ordered police and prosecutors to enforce its closure.
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Giving in to terrorists is always a good precedent. Now I get to hear even more jokes about the French surrendering.
 
Great idea to reward the criminal hooligan taxi drivers by giving them what they want.
 
because they've found a better way of running "cabs" than the established bureaucratic norm.
 
DocSavage said:
Giving in to terrorists is always a good precedent. Now I get to hear even more jokes about the French surrendering.
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the word "terrorist" is way overused probably to cement fear of terror via media even though it is an infinitessimal risk to die from terror in any western country. people torching cars like in this context are "rioters". not "terrorists".
 
has ordered a ban on the low-cost car-sharing service UberPOP after a day of nationwide protests by taxi drivers.
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So there's no argument about how Taxi drivers go through "training" here, it's simply a matter of one group upset that another group is taking money away from them, so we're going to protest if you don't ban them!!!

Looks like we did get democracy from them! :D
 
TechLarry said:
Why is Uber pissing so many people off?
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Because they are able to skirt the law of being a taxi by using 'contractors' instead of employees. So, no regulations at all. It's just one guy giving another guy a ride for money. The hook up is coordinated by the Uber app.

No regulation. No laws. So, it directly competes with taxi services but doesn't have to abide by any of the same laws of taxi's.
 
My point is that drivers probably aren't safe. I would at least suspend service in France until I do get a favorable ruling in that country.
 
Steve said:
ProTip: When the interior minister says your service is illegal and people are flipping cars and setting them on fire, now might not be a good time to "insist" that your company
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The only "people" it seems to be pissing off are government officials and Taxi drivers. If you actually took a poll of what the people in France thought, I'd be most would be highly supportive of Uber.

The part of the story that is always untold is how ridiculously expensive a Taxi ride is these days, whether you are in the US or in France. Taxi drivers don't mind because they get more money. Government officials don't mind because they get more money. Your average Taxi rider simply gets screwed. When a new concept enters the market and is crazy popular, it's generally because the system was broken previously.
 
Steve said:
My point is that drivers probably aren't safe. I would at least suspend service in France until I do get a favorable ruling in that country.
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Yeah. It's easy for the company to "insist" it will continue to operate...

From its offices in San Francisco, to its non-employee drivers in their non-Uber owned vehicles.
 
temujin987 said:
the word "terrorist" is way overused probably to cement fear of terror via media even though it is an infinitessimal risk to die from terror in any western country. people torching cars like in this context are "rioters". not "terrorists".
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I would agree, but since in this case we have a small group of people who are using violence to try and force the government to do what they want so the label does apply here and the government did cave to these terroristic tactic and gave the mob what they wanted.
 
Regardless of this violent protest it was a pretty obvious conclusion considering the government makes a ton of money from the tax industry in the form of fees and regulation, siding with Uber woukd have gone against their own interests.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Because they are able to skirt the law of being a taxi by using 'contractors' instead of employees. So, no regulations at all. It's just one guy giving another guy a ride for money. The hook up is coordinated by the Uber app.

No regulation. No laws. So, it directly competes with taxi services but doesn't have to abide by any of the same laws of taxi's.
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Not only that, but it also reinforces "race to the bottom" business, where the drivers for Uber don't have to be paid as much as a cab driver either, nor have any sort of benefits.
 
GotNoRice said:
When a new concept enters the market and is crazy popular, it's generally because it's cheap.
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FTFY. Regulations taxi drivers have to follow, tax revenues funneled over seas, insurance issues, predatory car loans for Uber drivers, safety problems (these drivers look at their phones the entire ride!), jobs/benefits be damned: The mob wants its cheap ride.

When Uber goes robocar, even the students or other low-income workers Uber is supposedly "helping" with its flexibility and getting support from, will be completely shut out and stuck with their car loans. They'll have no way to pay off that 1099-MISC/self-employment tax and car wear and tear in April. The company really doesn't give a shit and obviously the public doesn't either.

That being said, we are the biggest hypocrites now. Uber got us out a real jam this week when the storms cancelled our flight home from Philly. Were able to actually do something downtown during our delay instead of being stranded at a hotel all day and spending twice the time and equivalent money on bus/train/taxi.

Uber was easy and cheap and saved us time. I'm not going to get sanctimonious and pretend it was about anything else.

Can see the appeal now of the app, and see why all transportation companies should be doing the same thing, but I still think the company is true scumbag.
 
tetris42 said:
Not only that, but it also reinforces "race to the bottom" business, where the drivers for Uber don't have to be paid as much as a cab driver either, nor have any sort of benefits.
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And one would hope that type of market place would also work itself out, if they're being paid so little without benefits compared to taxi drivers why would they continue to do this on their own instead of becoming a taxi driver (or some other job)?

There will be a balancing act because the customer is going to drive the market, something taxi companies do NOT want to happen, however the people offering the service will self regulate, if it becomes a money sink to do the job then they'll stop doing it, prices will go back up as will pay rates of employees. Lets be honest too, driving a car from point A to point B does not take a college degree, it doesn't take much skill, the dumbest of the dumb can do it.

But ultimately it's about having choices, which the taxi industry does not like, when hotels started giving complementary pick up service at the airport, taxis bitched and moaned, when other limo/other car services started sitting at airports waiting for customers, taxis bitched and moaned. Uber/Lyft comes around, oh hey look taxis bitching and moaning. The whole "medallion" fee requirement is just the newest bit of ammo for the taxi industry, they are upset yet someone else is staking a claim on their market.
 
aldamon said:
Uber was easy and cheap and saved us time. I'm not going to get sanctimonious and pretend it was about anything else.
.
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Actually it was about something else, it was about you having a choice in options to choose. It just happens that pricing and convenience ended up being most important to you, and there's nothing wrong with that.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Because they are able to skirt the law of being a taxi by using 'contractors' instead of employees. So, no regulations at all. It's just one guy giving another guy a ride for money. The hook up is coordinated by the Uber app.

No regulation. No laws. So, it directly competes with taxi services but doesn't have to abide by any of the same laws of taxi's.
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Nor should it. Uber drivers provide their own cars. Consider it like the craigslist of the taxi world. Should I require a business license and form an LLC to sell my used junk on CL?
 
I cant imagine a city like Paris or wherever these riots are occurring is truly and utterly dependent upon taxis. It would be so epic if the citizens of France fought back and just had a nationwide boycott of all taxis. These scumbags are hurling bricks at random cars that they THINK might even be an uberdriver. Assaulting uber drivers, assaulting customers who use uber, even people who have their own transportation cant move around. They're blocking subways and train stations, etc. I am absolutely astonished that taxi drivers have this kind of mob rule in France. That instead of the police/SWAT descending upon the streets and arresting every single person participating in this riot, they actually took sides with the looters and banned uber as a solution instead.
 
I mean we're talking taxi's for christ's sake. I understand bankers and wall street getting away with murder, military profiteers and corrupt politicians in general. But how the fuck are taxi drivers this embedded in the government? I know money talks, but are they really that loaded that they can just bend an entire country to their whims? Fucking taxi drivers, who knew.
 
It isn't always right, but the French in some areas still have feelings of solidarity for fellow workers. It results in a ton of inefficiency over there. I'd say it's the opposite extreme of American individualism, where you're supposed to trip your own mother to run to get a dollar on the ground. Some type of happy medium needs to be found, I'd say maybe Germany.
 
TwistedAegis said:
It isn't always right, but the French in some areas still have feelings of solidarity for fellow workers. It results in a ton of inefficiency over there. I'd say it's the opposite extreme of American individualism, where you're supposed to trip your own mother to run to get a dollar on the ground. Some type of happy medium needs to be found, I'd say maybe Germany.
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That's never been a part of the American psyche.
 
sfsuphysics said:
And one would hope that type of market place would also work itself out, if they're being paid so little without benefits compared to taxi drivers why would they continue to do this on their own instead of becoming a taxi driver (or some other job)?
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Because the barrier to entry with Uber is basically nothing if you don't do your homework first! There will ALWAYS be a demand for low-paying jobs and people willing to work for peanuts for more and more hours as rates are slashed. Uber knows this is and is insufferably smug about it. But you knew this already.

Why do people keep signing up to drive for Uber after other drivers burn out? From the accounts I've read, it's because they don't really understand what they're getting into. Many drivers miscalculate take-home pay after 1099-MISC/SS/self-employment tax, the real cost/mi for wear and tear on cars (puke, etc) the real consequences of predatory loans for a new Uber car, the consequences of not having proper insurance, and the fact that if you drop a hair below a 4-star rating Uber will boot your ass no questions asked. On what planet is a 4-star rating bad? Planet Uber. They don't care. Some other knucklehead will take your place.
 
aldamon said:
Because the barrier to entry with Uber is basically nothing if you don't do your homework first! There will ALWAYS be a demand for low-paying jobs and people willing to work for peanuts for more and more hours as rates are slashed. Uber knows this is and is insufferably smug about it. But you knew this already.

.
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Yeah I knew it and to be honest, I don't care about them. The consumer in me wants low price, I don't care about their working conditions (assuming I didn't own a car and drove myself). It's why we largely don't care about poor farm workers, we want cheap food.

I would put some sort of driving service like Uber (or taxis for that matter) among the lowest of the low as far as requiring any sort of talent to have that job. Fast food workers at least need to know when food is cooked (or press the button that nukes the burger), hell migrant farm workers need to know which fruit is ready to be picked and what isn't. What does a taxi driver need to know? His way around a city? With a GPS system that's a non issue, and even with out if you argue they need to learn city streets well then congrats gentlemen you just put the intelligence level of a taxi driver being comparable to a rat thrown in a maze.
 
I refuse to support Uber anymore after their ridiculous policy of banning drivers and passengers from self-defense, but how the hell aren't they arresting (and deporting) most of those disgusting taxi drivers that were standing on overpasses and throwing cinderblocks on approaching vehicles that they THINK might have been Uber drivers?!?!?

Of course we know the real reason in France, as the government is all about unions and will always side against an American business, but its pretty pathetic.

Violent disgusting low-life taxi driver union culture is the primary appeal of services lie uber in the first place with the public, as you generally attract a completely different breed of person to drive you around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1C4fgYoVlA
 
Ur_Mom said:
Because they are able to skirt the law of being a taxi by using 'contractors' instead of employees.
Click to expand...

Contractors do not have "no regulations at all". That's nonsense. Contracting is a huge part of the regular economy. Moreover, most of the drivers are under the Auto-Entrepreneur regime and do pay taxes.

Ur_Mom said:
It's just one guy giving another guy a ride for money. The hook up is coordinated by the Uber app.
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This is entirely and comically incorrect. Uber does the financial transaction, you never pay the guy (which is very convenient, you will see why in my next sentence). However, this is what happens... with a regular taxi! G7, the biggest "company", is just doing the contacting, but you pay the taxi directly (and guess what, they always want cash, not CC).

Source: Am French, used taxis and Uber, know the law.
 
McFry said:
I cant imagine a city like Paris or wherever these riots are occurring is truly and utterly dependent upon taxis. It would be so epic if the citizens of France fought back and just had a nationwide boycott of all taxis.
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There are so few taxis anyway, we couldn't use them if we wanted. This is the major experience of French people with taxis: not finding one / waiting hours for one even when ordered by phone (which costs more).
 
sfsuphysics said:
And one would hope that type of market place would also work itself out, if they're being paid so little without benefits compared to taxi drivers why would they continue to do this on their own instead of becoming a taxi driver (or some other job)?
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Well that's easy. For many, it's difficult to get a job, and table scraps are always preferable to no money at all. That's how "race to the bottom" works. Without hard limitations, there's usually someone more desperate than you to do the same work for less to drive wages down.

There will be a balancing act because the customer is going to drive the market, something taxi companies do NOT want to happen, however the people offering the service will self regulate, if it becomes a money sink to do the job then they'll stop doing it, prices will go back up as will pay rates of employees. Lets be honest too, driving a car from point A to point B does not take a college degree, it doesn't take much skill, the dumbest of the dumb can do it.

But ultimately it's about having choices, which the taxi industry does not like, when hotels started giving complementary pick up service at the airport, taxis bitched and moaned, when other limo/other car services started sitting at airports waiting for customers, taxis bitched and moaned. Uber/Lyft comes around, oh hey look taxis bitching and moaning. The whole "medallion" fee requirement is just the newest bit of ammo for the taxi industry, they are upset yet someone else is staking a claim on their market.
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Yeah, it's kind of a mess both ways. On one hand, like you said, it's partly just taxis abusing their position, on the other hand, Uber is circumventing some laws that are there to protect everyone involved.
 
You could say that the French authorities are doing everything they can to behead Uber, an interesting national priority considering the latest events. No matter the outcome, I expect that at least some heads are going to roll. They always did in France back in the day, and it seems that as of late they still do.
 
Want to know the irony of all this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_(company)
The idea for Uber came to Travis Kalanick when he was trying to find a cab to attend a 2008 LeWeb conference in Paris, France but he could not find one. Kalanick cites Paris as "the inspiration for Uber".[8] Uber was founded as "UberCab"
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it was the state of the taxi service in Paris that spawned the idea.
I have to agree, the taxi service in paris is shite! the drivers are rude, expensive, take stupid routes ... I am glad I took some time to lean the train+metro+busroutes for my fortnightly trip over there....
 
So the response to a bunch of people breaking the law, destroying property and endangering peoples lives is to give them what they want instead of arresting them? How does that even make logical sense?
 
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