Tourists are bracing themselves for a nightmarish gridlock on roads from Thursday, as French taxi drivers prepare for unlimited strike action in protest against Uber, reports RFI.
The Californian ride-sharing service announced this week it was opening up its controversial Uberpop-booked via smartphone apps-in 3 new French cities, despite it being illegal.
France's taxi wars took a new twist on Friday night, when several taxi drivers parading as clients, tricked a group of UberPop drivers into picking them up, before later attacking them.
It's yet another display of the simmering tensions between traditional taxi drivers and UberPop, whose operators use GPS-enabled smartphones to link up with passengers. A service considered as "unfair competition," by taxis, which say UberPop is undercutting their pay.
UberPop's 4-euro minimum fare is less than the 6.86 euros that the government set for taxis. And their drivers don't need to pay the same level of taxes as conventional taxi owners.
On Friday, taxi unions around the country called for an unlimited strike this Thursday, in front of airports and major rail stations.
"We will stage sit-ins, no marches," Karim Asnoun of the left-leaning CGT union, told AFP. "The aim is to occupy the entire space, because we are fed up," he said.
Taxi drivers brought traffic to a standstill in February this year, and earlier this week, many of them refused to take fares, much to the frustration of numerous tourists.