Anti-Uber taxi protests to be staged in Paris tomorrow
Parisian cabbies could clog the city's streets tomorrow in a mass protest against a French court's refusal to ban a controversial service offered by taxi app Uber.
Three taxi groups have called on cab drivers to block a number of main streets in Paris from 5am tomorrow, according to a report by news service France 24.
France's main taxi unions have said they will stay out of the action and have released a statement deriding the protests for being poorly planned. They also reiterated their position that Uber is "an illegal service that should be banned."
It follows a French court's ruling on Friday which said UberPop, a service helping drivers without a taxi license use their cars to offer journeys at discounted rates, could continue to be used in France while the company takes its case to a higher court.
French officials are not anti-Uber however they have flagged concerns over safety and regulation.
Earlier this week France's economy minister Emmanuel Macron said "Uber is a reality in Paris, but you have to protect people … it doesn't make sense to have a crazy driver without a license because one day you'll have an issue."
And this isn't the first time UberPop has courted controversy in Paris.
In October, the company was fined 100,000 euros by a French court for misrepresenting the app as a car pool. At the time, Uber said the decision didn't question the existence of the service, only the conditions surrounding its delivery.