Taxi companies around the world aren’t happy with the emergence of startups like Uber, but in Paris, the anger has reached new heights.
Five big French taxi unions organized a big protest on Monday and it turned violent, as one Uber car carrying two startup founders had its windows smashed and tires slashed. Rude Baguette first reported on the story this morning, and Uber has since confirmed the attack, saying it “condemns the incident.”
Kat Borlongan, co-founder of Five by Five, was inside the vehicle, along with Renaud Visage, co-founder of popular startup Eventbrite.
Here’s a few tweets from Borlongan:
Got attacked in an @uber by cab drivers on strike near Paris airport: smashed windows, flat tires, vandalized vehicle and bleeding hands.
— Kat Borlongan (@katborlongan) January 13, 2014
Attackers tried to get in the car but our brave @uber driver maneuvered us to safety, changed the tire on the freeway and got us home.
— Kat Borlongan (@katborlongan) January 13, 2014
And an image from Visage’s Twitter account:
Attaqué par les taxis parisiens ce matin dans notre @Uber: jet de pierre, vitre arrière brisée, pneu creuvé, crachats pic.twitter.com/N9UMO248Yw
— Renaud Visage (@renaudvisage) January 13, 2014
Taxi drivers in Paris are upset with transportation network companies like Uber that allow riders to use smartphones to hail rides, calling it “unfair competition.” Today’s protest comes despite the fact that the French government just enacted a “15-minute law,” which forces Uber and others to wait 15 minutes after customers order a ride before picking them up.
Uber and other smartphone apps have been gaining popularity in Paris, the city where Uber founder Travis Kalanick conceived the idea for Uber.
The taxi-driver rage level hasn’t quite reached this intensity in Seattle, where taxi drivers parked outside of City Hall and honked their horns for an hour last August in their own form of protest.
However, the Emerald City drivers are disgruntled not so much with Uber, but rather ride-sharing startups like Lyft, Sidecar and UberX (Uber’s low-cost option) that allow people to essentially turn their own car into a taxi.
The startups, which also take advantage of smartphone features, are actually operating in violation of city laws and objecting to proposed regulations that would bring them into compliance with city rules. Still, the Seattle City Council has yet to officially decide how to regulate the companies, but is expected to do so in the first quarter of 2014.