EUROPE

2 Uber Executives Questioned by Police in Paris

By AURELIEN BREEDEN and 
PARIS — Two senior executives at the ride-hailing company Uber were detained and questioned by the police in Paris on Monday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
The police acted in connection with a months-old investigation into the company’s low-cost UberPop service. Taxi drivers held widespread protests against the service last week.
Uber, based in San Francisco, said in an emailed statement on Monday that the two executives had gone voluntarily to the police for questioning. They are Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s general manager for Western Europe, and Thibaud Simphal, general manager at Uber France.
“We are always happy to answer questions the authorities have about our service, and look forward to resolving these issues,” the company’s statement said. “Those discussions are ongoing.”
The French authorities have been investigating Uber since November on charges that it is organizing transportation services illegally. The company’s offices in Paris were raided in March by the police, who seized documents, computers and phones.
Uber’s main business allows customers to book rides with professional drivers through its smartphone app; the UberPop service allows them to book at lower rates with nonprofessional drivers who have signed up with the company. The French Parliament authorized Uber’s main services in October but made the UberPop option illegal.
Under French law, the police can hold a person for questioning for up to 24 hours, and in some cases 48 hours, before the person must be either released or charged before a judge.
Uber, founded in 2009, is facing increasing scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers across Europe, but resistance in France has been particularly fierce. Even so, Paris is one of Uber’s busiest markets, along with London and New York City, measured both by revenue and by number of rides.
French taxi drivers demonstrated across the country on Thursday to protest the UberPop service, blocking roads, disrupting traffic around major airports and, in some cases, attacking people they thought were working as Uber drivers. The conventional taxicab industry is heavily regulated in France, with drivers required to buy expensive licenses. Those drivers are furious that through UberPop, nonprofessionals can enter the market at essentially no cost and compete with them.
Uber says that in France, about 200,000 of its customers, or about 40 percent of the total, were using UberPop at the end of 2014.
The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, met with the country’s taxi unions on Thursday and condemned the outbreaks of violence at the demonstrations, but he saved his harshest words for Uber, calling the company “arrogant.”
Mr. Cazeneuve said UberPop was illegal and had to be shut down, and he warned that the vehicles of drivers caught offering their services through UberPop would be seized. The next day, he said the government had filed a legal complaint against the company that was “wide enough to cover statements by UberPop managers,” adding that inciting people to defy the ban on the service was “a criminal offense.”
Uber is contesting the ban in the French courts and has told its drivers to continue working in the meantime, despite the crackdown by the authorities. It has also filed a complaint with the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union.
Uber has run into legal trouble in a number of countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea and Germany, where, in March, a court in Frankfurt became the latest in Europe to ban UberPop.
Mark Scott contributed reporting from London.
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A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2015, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Paris Police Question Executives With Uber. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe