Violence is wrong and this is not ok.
However, Uber should be more aware of what they're 'disrupting'. Strong unions see this as a foreign company threatening their livelihoods and there will be push back.
They would also extend "protection" to favored businesses, and use violence against businesses which did not accept "protection".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia
We've had great success using laws such as RICO against them. Perhaps France can ask our law enforcement agencies for some tips.
Yeah, this isn't USA. There are actual employment rights and strong trade unions here.
But you always must keep diligence, because unions can devolve into a mafia. The taxis here in France are an example of that. I have never had a single ride that was the correct price, and after many attempts I gave up. I'm certainly not alone. People have been trying to disrupt and get around them for ages but they fight as mafia do: fiercely.
It seems that taxi companies are more mafia than union in the US also, but at least they will pick you up. This is because the government won't give them money if they don't work. I appreciate that France has a strong social safety net, but this is one of the downsides of that; it's easy to abuse.
Maybe the cabs you were trying to get already had customers on board. Hint : if a taxi is free, the light on top of it is green. If it's red, there's already a customer on board.
When travelling around Europe, I put big Irish stickers on my motorbike. You can get Scottish flag stickers for your car that say "Scotland" in French[1], so the French drivers don't think you're English.
[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scotland-Ecosse-Sticker-Number-Salti...
You know that the idea for Uber came from the founder's experience trying to get a taxi in Paris, right? That suggests I'm not alone in my experience with Parisian taxis.
Actually that link says the complete opposite. It says that while in Paris, the founder were talking about their (bad) experience of getting a taxi in San Francisco.
> Garrett Camp and I were hanging out in Paris for a week at Loic and Geraldine LeMeur’s LeWeb conference. Amongst the amazing food, the copious amounts of wine and inevitable nightlife crawls there were all kinds of discussions about what’s next. Garrett had sold StumbleUpon to Ebay and had been doing “hard time” at a big company. I had just completed my tour with Akamai after selling Red Swoosh to them in 2007. > > Jamming on ideas, rapping on what’s next is what entrepreneurs do. Garrett and I would get some good music, good drinks and jam until 5am. Garrett’s big idea was cracking the horrible taxi problem in San Francisco — getting stranded on the streets of San Francisco is familiar territory for any San Franciscan.
However, the founding story I heard first was the Paris taxi story, and it's backed up by these old tweets from LeWeb: http://eventifier.co/event/leweb/tweets?page=21&q=uber#
So maybe it was SF taxis after all, or maybe not. If I'm ever face to face with an Uber founder I'll ask.
Threats, violence and vandalism of someone else's property are not okay.
One could argue that , because of collective bargaining, there might not be that many advantages to joining a union in France (the biggest union ends up representing you anyways).