Angry taxis: 450 kilometers of traffic jams in Ile-de-France

Taxis are still angry. Hundreds of drivers from across France continued to protest in Paris this Wednesday, May 21, against the new pricing conditions for medical transport and competition from private hire vehicles, at the call of the taxi inter-union.

Between honking horns and fireworks in the rain, they are still blocking Boulevard Raspail, near the Ministry of Transport, in the center of Paris, two of the three lanes of the A1 motorway between Charles-de-Gaulle Airport and Paris, as well as the Paris ring road. According to Le Parisien , 461 kilometers of traffic jams were recorded in the Ile-de-France region at 5:30 p.m., particularly on the Paris ring road and in the north, east, and south of the capital.

Several thousand taxi drivers already demonstrated across France on Monday and Tuesday . The situation with law enforcement has become tense on several occasions, with four Parisian protesters being prosecuted. In Marseille, two taxi drivers were injured on Tuesday during their demonstration when a car, identified by taxi drivers as a chauffeur-driven vehicle (VTC), drove into them.

Taxi drivers are particularly angry about a measure by the French health insurance system, which intends to introduce a single model for patient transport across the country from October 1st. These trips to hospitals or doctors' surgeries represent a significant portion of the revenue of many licensed taxi drivers. Taxi drivers will be paid based on a €13 flat rate and a mileage charge. They are encouraged to group together patients who have nearby journeys and to use geolocation to avoid fraud.

Health Minister Catherine Vautrin stressed on Tuesday that it is "important that our fellow citizens can be transported when they need it," but "health transport spending is on a very steep upward curve." This spending represented €6.3 billion in the 2023 health budget. The sector says it is ready to discuss, in particular, shared transport and " cost optimization." But it is calling for the current project to be frozen.

But this reform isn't the only reason for these protests. Many taxis are also protesting against competition from VTCs, coordinated by platforms like Uber and Bolt. Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot proposed on Wednesday "strengthening controls against fraud, particularly targeting illegal activity, marauding, and illegal soliciting." These measures will be based in particular on "the experiment underway since April with new fixed fines for offenses (up to €1,000), which simplify and accelerate sanctions against fraudsters," the ministry said.

Philippe Tabarot also proposed to combat "the abusive system of attaching certain VTCs to fleet managers, which encourages the activity of fake professionals as well as tax and social security fraud." He also proposes to better regulate access to the VTC driver profession, by "a revision of the so-called equivalence access route," which benefits people who already have one year of experience in passenger transport. "We are not against" these measures, replied the president of the National Taxi Federation, Emmanuelle Cordier: "But it's administrative, it doesn't meet the needs on the ground."