France set to ban UberPop car service

France plans to ban Uber Technologies’s UberPop car service, three days after a Paris judge rejected a bid to block the smartphone application that lets users get rides with private cars.

“We are banning the service where someone can be a driver while not having the training, the background checks and basic requirements,” Pierre-Henry Brandet, an interior ministry spokesman, said .

“Car-sharing is allowed but not this service.”

The ban will take effect on January 1st, he said.

Governments are stepping up regulation of Uber, a service that has angered licensed taxi drivers who say it’s unfair competition. The startup was sued last week by the district attorneys of Los Angeles and San Francisco over claims it makes false assurances about drivers’ background checks.

That followed a ban in Spain, while Rio de Janeiro declared the service illegal and the Netherlands halted its ride-sharing offer.

Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s general manager for western Europe, said the matter ultimately will be settled in court. “It’s up to a judge to decide whether or not to ban UberPop, not to the interior ministry,” he said .

“The commercial court decided last Friday not to ban UberPop, so one must put things in context. It’s still far from being over.”

The interior ministry’s announcement comes on the day that three Parisian taxi unions had planned a demonstration to include blocking the ring highway around the capital and slowing down traffic to and from Paris international airports of Roissy and Orly to protest against San Francisco-based Uber.

Taxi drivers also gathered at Vauban square near the Interior Ministry in Paris to ask for a meeting with a government representative. “Had we known that UberPop would be banned on January 1st, we’d not have organised the strike,” Abdelkader Morghad, a representative of the FTI taxi union, said .

The strike wasn’t followed by the national unions and there’s no plan to extend it on Tuesday, he said.

Uber’s other services, including the more expensive UberX, whose drivers are required to have a permit, weren’t at risk in the Paris court decision last week.

There’s no question of banning Uber entirely in France, economy minister Emmanuel Macron has said.

- Bloomberg