French police raids Uber office to investigate its controversial ride-sharing service

French police raided the Paris offices of Uber taxi app company on Tuesday as part of an investigation into its controversial ride-sharing service, the company told AFP. The headquarters of the French branch of the US-based firm was targeted at the request of the Paris prosecutor’s office.

The enquiry centres on the uber-POP smartphone application, which puts non-professional drivers with their own cars in touch with passengers via their mobile phones or a website, for rides at budget rates.

The company called the raid an “attempt at intimidation,” adding that dozens of non-professional uber-POP users had been fined since the start of the year. “We see this raid as a disproportionate action carried out on a very fragile legal basis,” Uber France boss Thibaud Simphal told the website of L’Obs magazine. uberPOP is technically illegal in France, but the company has appealed a €100,000 ($113,000) fine it received last year.

Uber’s American founder Travis Kalanick has said the system will create 50,000 new jobs in Europe this year and help take 400,000 cars off the road by encouraging drivers to use taxis instead of their own vehicle.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and nearly 30 other Uber employees were charged on suspicion of operating illegal taxi services, the country’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

Korean police announced the move on Tuesday and said that if Uber continued doing business in the same way, officials would seek an arrest warrant against Kalanick. Korean authorities on Tuesday charged Kalanick as well as the head of Uber Korea, which Yonhap names only by his last name, Kang, and 27 others associated with the car booking app. They are suspected of connecting passengers with drivers through the Uber app without a license, according to Korean media. Employees and drivers are believed to be among those charged.

Uber, which operates in about 250 cities in 50 countries, has become an object of scorn from traditional taxi companies fighting for survival against the rise of the Silicon Valley challenger, founded in 2009. Agencies