French taxi drivers smash cars in strike against Uber
Complaints mounting that livery services are unfairly undercutting local cabs amid attacks on almost 100 drivers off app-based service
French taxi drivers smashed up livery cars, set tires ablaze and blocked traffic across the country yesterday in a nationwide strike aimed at Uber after weeks of rising, sometimes violent tensions over the US ride-hailing company.
Travellers going to and from the airport walked alongside highways with their bags or got caught in ambushes, like singer Courtney Love, who was rescued by two men on a motorcycle.
"They've ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage," Love tweeted. "They're beating the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I'm safer in Baghdad."
Taxi drivers are angry, saying Uber's lowest cost app-based service is taking their livelihood away.
Despite repeated rulings against the low-cost UberPop service, its drivers continue to ply French roads and the Uber is actively recruiting drivers and passengers alike. Uber claims to have a total of 400,000 customers a month in France.
Riot police chased strikers from Paris' ring road, where protesters torched tires in the middle of the roadway and swarmed onto exit ramps at rush hour.
Love, Kurt Cobain's widow, sent a litany of tweets yesterday afternoon, including one to Kanye West suggesting she would have been better off staying at the airport with him.