An Uber protest in Paris with cab drivers blocking entrances to the airports has turned downright nasty.
As Reuters reports, France’s interior minister has called for the “nationwide legal clampdown” on UberPOP, basically UberX in France, “siding with taxi drivers who blockaded major transport hubs.”
Cab drivers have been blocking roads into Charles de Gaullle and Orly airports, as well as staging blockades and protests in other cities across France, according to Reuters.
Some areas have escalated into more than blockades and protests. Overturned vehicles, burning tires and outbreaks between cabbies and other drivers are erupting, causing police to even put on riot gear and use tear gas.
A scroll through images being loaded to Twitter, many from European news agencies, shows exactly just how nasty things are getting.
French taxi drivers burn cars and block transport hubs in anti-Uber protest http://t.co/ICMApkJTrV pic.twitter.com/LRDyA8QnJC
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 25, 2015
Why the protests? In France, taxi licenses are expensive, and Uber is taking a hefty slice of cabbies’ incomes, hence the current situation.
“UberPop has been operating in a murky legal space since the beginning of this year, when a new law requiring all chauffeurs to carry licenses and insurance went into effect,” reports the Verge. “French officials have said the service will be illegal under the law, but courts have allowed it to continue pending a ruling on its legality from a constitutional court.”
Thankfully, we Americans have a trusty correspondent on the ground in the form of Courtney Love, who got caught up in the mess en route to the airport, proclaiming that she would be “safer in Baghdad”:
Dude @kanyewest we may turn back to the airport and hide out with u.picketers just attacked our car #ParisUberStrike pic.twitter.com/MtanurybOO
— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 25, 2015
they've ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage. they're beating the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I'm safer in Baghdad
— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 25, 2015
how on earth are these people allowed to do this? the first car was destroyed, all tires slashed… https://t.co/lWuFRMG6I5
— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 25, 2015