Paris taxi drivers learn to mind their manners in the age of Uber

THE “godfather” of Parisian taxis has offered hundreds of cabbies free politeness lessons, conceding that the controversial arrival of Uber and other minicab companies in the French capital has forced them to finally go up a gear in customer service.

Parisian taxi drivers, whose cars are easily recognisable by their green or red signs, have long had a reputation for being among the world’s rudest.

Tales abound of grumpy cabbies playing loud music, almost never accepting credit cards and turning up for a booked ride with €10 already on the meter. But the boss of the French capital’s main taxi company has insisted all that is changing.

Nicolas Rousselet, chief executive of G7, by far Paris’s biggest taxi company, confessed that with minicabs flooding the city and cabbies now receiving marks on smartphone applications, the industry has been forced to enact a “cultural revolution”.

He told The Sunday Telegraph he had a crack team dedicated to retraining hundreds of cabbies in need of lessons on how to be polite to customers.

“We found that 800 out of 8,000 drivers in our Service Plus category had less than three stars on our application,” he said. “We decided not to take them off the platform but to retrain them.” Since receiving lessons on ser- vice with a smile, an ironed shirt and basic communication skills, he said the average mark on the application had rocketed to 4.6 stars out of five. The 80 drivers who failed to reform were relegated to a lower taxi category.

For decades, Parisian taxis reigned supreme, and links with government helped them maintain their privileges. So they reacted with fury when Uber and others first appeared after a 2009 law authorised them, inspired by a commission presided over by Emmanuel Macron. They protested by overturning cars, burning tyres and throwing eggs at tourists.

As revenues plummeted, the cabbies were particularly incensed as they pay up to €240,000 (£210,000) for a licence while minicab ones are free.

But in retrospect, Mr Rousselet confessed that the arrival of Uber and their like had been “a good thing for quality of service”.

“(Before minicabs), drivers treated customers as they saw fit. This unsatisfactory situation gave rise to competitors. “If you don’t satisfy your customers, someone else will,” he said.

He gathered thousands of taxi drivers in a recent convention to warn them that they would have to shape up or die out.

There are roughly 18,000 traditional “taxis Parisiens” and 19,000 minicabs in Paris and 23,000 black cabs and 40,000 minicabs in London.