French taxi drivers resume anti-Uber strike, disrupt traffic

General view as striking French taxi drivers block the road as they continue their national protest about competition from private auto ride firms like Uber, in Paris, France, January 27, 2016.

The French civil aviation authority DGAC called today on airlines to cancel 20 percent of their flights as a preventive measure ahead of the air traffic controllers’ strike.

According to the BBC, more than 5.4 millon people went on strike on Tuesday. It’s the latest challenge to Francois Hollande’s Socialist government and its stop-and-start efforts to modernize the economy.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls met with taxi drivers in an apparent attempt to defuse tensions.

Taxi drivers say that they are losing their livelihood to the US vehicle service.

Paris also happens to be the place that taxi drivers have been as vocal – if not the most-outspoken – against Uber worldwide, so this is significant.

Dozens of drivers tried to march from Porte Maillot intersection on to an eight-lane road, but police pushed the back with tear gas.

The taxi drivers have blocked a major intersection leading into western Paris.

One in five flights were cancelled at Paris airports as air traffic controllers stayed off the job.

Wednesday is expected to see similar disruption on city ring roads like the peripherique in Paris, where protesters had burned tyres on Tuesday, as well as around train stations and airports.

The company shut down UberPOP in July after two of its French bosses were arrested and charged with “misleading commercial practices (and) complicity in the illegal exercise of the taxi profession”.

Tuesday’s industrial action, which France24 reports is set to be “massive”, follows violent protests by taxi drivers in June 2015, fueled by anger at Uber’s low-priced UberPOP service, which allowed anyone to use a personal vehicle to pick up customers. They have also condemned around 150,000 job losses since 2007.

Demonstrators claim that drivers for Uber, the American company that recently reached 1 billion rides, and their ilk arebreaking rules that prohibit them from cruising the streets for fares and also hold an unfair advantage against taxi drivers who must pay for costly licenses.

“They vandalise the professionals who are paying taxes, the professionals who respect the rules”.

Uber has argued that the goal of rival taxi companies is to put pressure on the government to limit competition.