You need to be a registered driver to pick up folks for money in France. So Uber or Uber X are lawful (professional drivers => ok), but Uber Pop is not.
As for picking people via hail, IIRC you still need to be a taxi. For private drivers (like Uber X), one has to order before. There was a lot of debate on this about a year ago already.
The first constraint exists in other countries it seems to me, and there is a reasonable case of unfair competition as professional drivers have extra requirements and costs vs. an Uber Pop driver. The second one on hail looks to me like taxi drivers lobbying to protect their turf, and shouldn't exists. But right now all the hoopla is on Uber Pop.
In any case the taxi situation has been a known mess in Paris for a long time. It can't last forever. The taxi rejected any evolution so far, while politics were not eager to force changes against a very noisy and well organized profession. The result is that we have roughly the same number of taxis as in 1930, with 3 times the population. Not enough taxis at peak time, and poor service is the result. It will eventually change, and it will be messy. Typical...
As for picking people via hail, IIRC you still need to be a taxi. For private drivers (like Uber X), one has to order before. There was a lot of debate on this about a year ago already.
The first constraint exists in other countries it seems to me, and there is a reasonable case of unfair competition as professional drivers have extra requirements and costs vs. an Uber Pop driver. The second one on hail looks to me like taxi drivers lobbying to protect their turf, and shouldn't exists. But right now all the hoopla is on Uber Pop.
In any case the taxi situation has been a known mess in Paris for a long time. It can't last forever. The taxi rejected any evolution so far, while politics were not eager to force changes against a very noisy and well organized profession. The result is that we have roughly the same number of taxis as in 1930, with 3 times the population. Not enough taxis at peak time, and poor service is the result. It will eventually change, and it will be messy. Typical...