French taxi drivers angry at competition from taxi app Uber on Thursday blocked access to Paris airports and barricaded the city’s busy ring road as they protested losing customers to the popular service, reports FRANCE 24.
The "peripherique" highway that encircles the French capital was closed in both directions in the west of Paris after cabbies put up barricades on the roads, officials said.
Access to three terminals at Paris's busy Charles de Gaulle airport in the north was blocked and cabs were converging on the Orly airport in the south and at train stations inside the city.
"The goal is to block space because we are really fed up," Karim Asnoun of the CGT union told AFP.
Thousands of cabs were also due to assemble in several of France's other major cities as part of Thursday’s strike.
Taxi drivers in France, who have to pay up to 240,000 euros for their licenses, are furious at US-based Uber, which they say is endangering their jobs by taking customers away from licensed cab companies.