French regulators eased their crack down on the sharing economy and took Uber’s side on Wednesday. France’s Conseil d’Etat, the country’s highest administrative court, overturned a law that made it illegal for Uber to show customers the location of available drivers.
The previous law, passed by the French Constitutional Court in May, was ignored by Uber. The ride hailing service continued its spirit of permissionless innovation and showed the locations of drivers anyway.
This is a small victory for the sharing economy in Europe and an important step in the right direction. So far, it has been challenging for Uber to operate in France. Regulators have sided with incumbent taxi firms and cracked down heavily on ride sharing. This summer, for example, French prosecutors indicted two Uber executives on criminal charges for running an illegal taxi operation and threatened them with fines and jail time.