The highest court in France has dismissed an appeal by US-based Uber, leaving the road open for French taxi drivers to take passengers for a ride.
France banned the ride-sharing app UberPop last January. The move came after incensed taxi drivers around the country protested.
The app lets customers get in touch with private drivers for lifts which are pitched at budget prices.
The American parent company submitted a complaint with the EU over the ban and also took its case to France’s constitutional council.
In the meantime, Uber kept operating in France despite the ban. This resulted in several violent protests in June in which cars were set alight and a number of drivers and passengers were attacked.
These concerns and the arrest of Uber’s two French bosses encouraged Uber to stop offering lifts. The two were charged with “misleading commercial practices (and) complicity in the illegal exercise of the taxi profession”.
Now the constitutional court has ruled that the ban is in accord with legislation against "an organised system that puts clients in touch with people" offering taxi services but which is not part of an official transport company.
Uber has launched an alternative service, called Uber X, in several European countries which puts potential users in touch with professionally licensed drivers.
Uber says it operates in more than 50 countries and has 400,000 UberPop users in France.
