Agreed. Also the context matters: the taxi lobby is extremely powerful in France and had successfully blocked the market from any competition, extracting an out

Agreed. Also the context matters: the taxi lobby is extremely powerful in France and had successfully blocked the market from any competition, extracting an outrageous rent on the back of a licensing system that was terribly designed. They'd block roads and cities at the first sign of change in their market. Unblocking that situation required some discretion otherwise it would have never happened.