France can be quite reactionary when it comes to think like this, and it's a shame. Wish they'd thought of ways to incorporate this technology and democratise the system as opposed to a good old knee-jerk.
UberPop,on the other hand,is a private taxi service.It's not about someone saying he goes to Nantes and has room for 4 people,for a 15€ fee.
Given the price of the train,the development of ride sharing and inter region bus travelling(which was still illegal a few years ago),is a good thing.
I cant believe how insanely expensive the train is today.The SNCF also stopped providing a lot of services (low cost train,stations,...)they deemed not profitable enough just to push for the high speed rail.in 2005,you could do Paris-Nantes for 15€. It took 4 hours,but who cares.
Today,it's 50 up to 100€ + if you dare book a trip on the same day you're travelling.
What's more or less tolerated (for now) is some ride-sharing drivers inflating prices above the legal limit to make a small buck.
Wait, this was illegal? Wtf, why?
ps: music band tribute username ?
(nope, Vampire the Masquerade tribute username ;) )
Maintenance? Cost? Politics? All of the above? It seems odd for a truly world-class city such as Paris to not have a 24/7 subway system.
Also note that "night service" on NYC subway can sometimes be every 20 or 30 minutes and run alternating on one track
I think Uber still has a lot going for it specifically in Paris: convenience, accepting credit cards, etc, without having to skirt around the law...
Well the system itself is broken with the taxis' licensing plates being over-valued..
One one hand I don't like much Uber, on the other hand it would have helped terminate this broken system..
But for the government it's much easier to ban Uber than to fix the system, especially since taxis can very easily disrupt Paris's overloaded roads..
But I don't understand this decision since the government has to do something anyway because of the VTC (kind of taxis but they can't pick you up in the street, i.e. other Uber services. They do not need a taxi license) which have been authorized. A really good news for the poor fools who just invested in a taxi license...
Combine that with a more ancient bend for Jacobinism and technocracy and you have the current situation. Very powerful unions who can lock down reform, and a population who polls to the left of Cuba in terms of political opinions.
Ce pays est foutu.
I'm a socialist myself so I feel sympathy for a communist, even if I don't agree with him.
That's about as far from Stalinism you can get.
Also the PCF had 27% of the seats in the Assemblee Constituante of the 4th republic.
Seriously.I can agree with you(expect for the communist finger pointing,i mean the whole political class is responsible for the current situation).What is really stupid,is that,you could create a lot of job by easing a few regulations here and there.The problem is,the state created the issue with taxis at first place,with the limited license attribution.You shouldn't cap taxi licenses.Yes,they should follow all requirements needed,be inspected on regular basis and have the proper insurance.By I see little justification for the license cap thing.
You want people not to use their own car.And by the way there is that auto-lib thing,so why cap the taxi pool?
That can be said about a lot of other fields too.You want things to run smoothly,you want people to be able to rent a flat without having to produce 10+ years of payslips, you want people to be mobile to be able to relocate to find work easily, ... you want to create an proper environment for employment,investment,... and not just protect "your friends".That's not just a "communist" issue,all parties do the same mistake,but people need to want it as well.Today,I think we're too afraid of the future,and have some kind of "romanticized" vision of France that never really existed,and,that is also important,Paris is too snob, and self centered as well.So giving more power(and proper financing) to the regions is something important as well.
It's not just cab licensing, that happens everywhere. What's different about France is that a few years ago the government tried to increase the cap, and cabs started grid locking Paris in protest. What did the government do? They caved. That type of thing would not happen in a place like NYC. Why did they cave?
Public opinion was after all against taxi cabs which are fairly unpopular in Paris. However, handling the issue with force would have turned public opinion against the government, and would have triggered the other syndicalist organisation to join in protest.
We're back at the root of the problem. Public opinion in France is strongly anchored to the left, and yes, it has to do with the far left's influence on the Education Nationale. Open a French high-school textbook in economics and you will see large sections devoted to Marxism, an economic theory that pretty much no modern economist support.
NYC with its taxi medallions is a really well known example of a taxi monopoly. So I'm not sure why you'd think that it's somehow better than in France and that they wouldn't "cave" to a cab strike.
In NYC, the taxi medallions have reduced in number since the start of the monopoly in 1937, and by 1996 (60 years later) it dwindled from an initial 16000 to a mere 11500. And since then they've added a paltry 2000 extra ones to bring the number somewhere above 13000.
This no doubt accounts for the success of the extreme right wing.
> France is left with a few generations that have been force fed progressive propaganda from an early age.
Ah, yes. Like this fantastic law about the positive effects of colonialism? Clearly, conservatives would totally above any kind of revisionism...
Anyway, good luck in your country of adoption. Hope you don't get seriously sick.
As far as the attitude of French people on economic issues, just look at the polls instead of making ad hominem an quips http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/economie/20110125trib0005... http://www.croissance-responsable.fr/commissions/sondage-les... http://www.ifop.fr/?option=com_publication&type=poll&id=2637
I looked briefly at the polls you linked to. People think that the current economic system profits unfairly to a small minority? Is that being far left now? A third thinking capitalism is not the way forward becomes "the population polls left of Cuba"?
There's a specific poll that I'm trying to dig which was about attitudes towards free markets and capitalism where French citizens polled among the least favorable country in the world, below Cubans. I didn't just make it up as a quip.