IN most of the world's large cities, taxi services evolve to reflect

something of the local atmosphere. In Amsterdam, where violent films are

enjoyed for their laughter value, the hobby of most taxi drivers is to

watch the terrified faces of passengers in the rear mirror. In Cairo,

where cabs decline to change direction before reaching the city

boundaries, drivers try to sell their passengers a street map in order

to indicate their destination. In New York, most cabbies try to complete

the transaction in two grunts.

In London, their Cockney counterparts practise political monologues.

It is only in France, however, where the ''taximetre'' was first fitted

to horse carriages, and ''cabriolet'' was used to describe the ''little

leap'' from one spot to another, that the taxi driver has developed the

full misanthropic potential of his calling. Ah . . . who has not

suffered a baleful glare and Gallic insult for wanting to travel less

than a kilometre? Even struggling with luggage, many visitors to the

French capital brave the Metro rush-hour rather than be told by a surly

cabbie to put the bags on the back seat themselves.

All this is in the proud tradition of Parisian rudeness, of course,

and it will be interesting to see if a new training course aimed at

improving the standard of the city's taxis is effective. After 440 hours

of instruction in road craft, and the ''rudiments of making welcome'',

like saying ''Thank you'' for tips in foreign languages, drivers will

receive a diploma which will entitle them to charge a minimum of 30

francs (#3), no matter how short the trip. It is the fare that seems to

worry both drivers and passengers in any part of the world. The US

comedienne Carol Burnett once caught her coat getting out of a New York

taxi door, and had to run alongside the cab until an observant

pedestrian hailed it. ''Are you all right?'' the driver asked. ''Yes,''

she gasped. ''But how much more do I owe you?''