[nicolas_t]

Uber being available in Paris was one of the greatest thing to happen for tourists and residents alike. I agree with the general sentiment, Taxis in France are some of the worst taxis I've used. I've had a lot of bad experiences. And lest you think it's due to racism or because they thought I was a tourist (not that this would excuse their behaviour one iota), I'm French and I was born in Paris.

I can understand the financial hardship brought by Uber and the frustration with the license prices but as a group, they have not endeared themselves to me and none of my friends have generally positive experiences with them.

It's high time a service like Uber which penalises drivers for bad experience exists.

[Mimu]

It is worth knowing that even though the licenses are limited, the gouvernement gave them all for free, it is the taxis themselves that created some kind of mafia bullshit selling it back 200k euros.

Also not very a response but Uber is kinda of fucking every laws aswell so even though the service is better and cheaper, so is my Nike made by children, it does not mean we need to make children work again for peanuts.

[simias]

Yeah, I'm basically on the same page as you. I can't say I really enjoy using taxis in Paris (although I don't have any nightmare stories like other people in this thread, mostly minor annoyances like refusing to take credit cards and some general rudeness).

On the other hand having services like uber breaking regulations might end up making taxis less safe and with a worse quality of service down the line as prices keep plunging due to the heavy unregulated competition.

I think the right move would be to open the market while still heavily regulating them but I don't know how the government can convince the taxi drivers to accept that since it would mean losing their super expensive license. I suppose the government could buy the licenses itself but that would be heinously expensive (and as a tax payer I can't say I would really like that).

I really wish the government wouldn't have allowed for this license market to exist in the first place, it was obviously going to create a cartel.

[ork]

The taxis unions threaten the government with strikes and airport blockades every time the topic of opening the licenses comes to the table. The mafia is strong.

[robmccoll]

If you believe that and care, either stop buying nikes and stop taking uber or start petitioning your government to change or implement laws. Personally Uber being made legal is something I would consider a reasonable issue for a politician to take a stand on one way or another. If you live somewhere with elected officials, consider these things when voting.

[smcl]

It's weird that racism seems to be a common theme\complaint about taxi drivers in many countries. The stereotype of the racist cab driver - usually a loud guy oversharing some opinions about black\indian\romanian immigrants - is pretty ingrained in the UK psyche, and many people I know have had to endure awkward and cringeworthy conversations in black cabs.

[nicolas_t]

The education level of the average taxi driver is usually not very high and racism is not evenly distributed among educated and not very educated people.

So even if there's 20-25% of people voting FN (the racist party) in France, the percentage of people with a relatively lower level of education is much higher.

And the other aspect of this is that people tend to not often talk with people of lower socio-economic level so talking to Taxi driver is one of the few occasions where people end up talking with people with drastically different level. (The same effect also happens in Hair Salons).