Angry French taxi drivers disrupted traffic and slowed access to airports near Paris Thursday to protest the U.S. online ride service UberPOP.
The UberPop app was ruled illegal by the French government last year, but the company hasn’t yet exhausted all legal recourse.
Didier Hogrel, president of the National Federation of Taxis, told CNN that the taxi drivers were taking action at Paris’ airports, at the capital’s Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon train stations, and at Porte Maillot, in the Montparnasse area.
One taxi driver was injured by a private car driver near Orly airport Thursday morning and was taken to a hospital, he said.
U.S. singer Courtney Love said she had been caught up in the protests, tweeting, “they’ve ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage. they’re beating the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I’m safer in Baghdad.”
Love, who said her car had been attacked after leaving the airport, later tweeted that she had “got out after being held hostage for an hour” thanks to two motorcycle riders.
An Uber spokesman told CNN: “There’s 50,000 taxis in France, only roughly 1,000 are demonstrating today and the violence is just unacceptable.
“We’re talking about a small minority, totally reluctant to (accept) any sort of change.”
Police told CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV that 2,800 taxi drivers were protesting across the country.
Access to Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports was disrupted for several hours, police said. Protesting taxi drivers also slowed down traffic on the A13 freeway, heading northwest out of the capital.
Police urged people trying to reach Paris’ airports to take the train or metro rather than travel by road.
