French taxis, air traffic controllers, schools on strike

Mass strikes across France exploded into violence today as Paris taxi drivers brought roads to a standstill in a protest against the threat posed by Uber and other online competitors.

France faced travel chaos Tuesday as taxi drivers and air traffic controllers went on strike across the country, local media reported.

Police arrested some 20 people, mainly in that western Paris incident, a Reuters journalist at the scene said.

Budget airline Ryanair said it had cancelled more than 200 flights, and EasyJet had cut 35 flights, mostly within France but also affecting Italy, Switzerland and Spain. Taxi drivers may also blockade access roads to some major airports.

Dozens of strikers set up a roadblock outside Orly airport, where a minibus hit one of the pickets, injuring him in the leg and prompting his comrades to attack it and force the passengers to get off.

A stoppage by state-employed air traffic controllers over working conditions caused cancellation of about one in five flights, according to the DGAC air transport authority. Paris taxi drivers protesting what they consider unfair competition from rival services such as Uber are joining teachers a…

Uber continued to run UberPOP service in France for several months following the ban, leading to a spate of violent protests by taxi unions in June.

Similarly, schools faced no-shows from teachers urged by labour unions to protest against the reorganisation of language learning and other aspects of secondary schooling, and also to demand that the government loosen a wage cap that has been in place for several years.

The San Francisco-based company finally shut down the low-priced service 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”.

Public servants are angry over a range of issues including pay, education reforms and working conditions.

The controllers’ unions want to be exempted from proposed changes to how salaries are calculated, which they say would hurt their purchasing power.

The striking unions also denounce job losses totalling some 150,000 since 2007 and say the hospital sector is especially in need of new jobs.