Spain: Taxi drivers threaten to take strike to French border

MADRID – Taxi drivers striking to demand tighter regulations for companies using ride-hailing apps are blocking traffic for another day in Spain’s two major cities, and threatening to take their protest to the French border.

Hundreds of taxi drivers continue to block major roads on Tuesday in Madrid and Barcelona, with many wearing the yellow traffic safety vest that has become the symbol of citizen protests in neighbouring France.

Alberto Alvarez, spokesman for the Barcelona taxi driver association Elite Taxi, told Spanish television that “we are talking to our colleagues in France to go to the frontier also.”

The strike started in Barcelona on Friday, when some taxi drivers trashed cars operated by the app services Uber and Cabify.