‘Hidden deal’ vs ‘conspiracy’: Two opposing views of France’s Uber Files report

Uber and President Emmanuel Macron had a “hidden deal” going on when he was economy minister, France’s parliamentary committee looking into the Uber files case wrote in a critical report published on Tuesday (18 July), drawing criticism of a “conspiracy” from pro-Macron deputies.

Read the original French article here.

Following revelations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in July 2022, a committee of enquiry was set up in December 2022 on the initiative of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s opposition far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI).

The journalistic investigation was based on more than 120,000 documents provided by Mark MacGann, a former lobbyist responsible for Uber’s European public affairs between 2014 and 2016.

During that same period, Macron, then economy minister, worked closely with Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick to promote the US company setting up in France, even though this contradicted the official position of the Socialist government of then-president François Hollande.

The parliamentary report, drafted by the rapporteur of the file, far-left MP Danielle Simonnet, noted that the French state had failed to comply with the law due to “a clear lack of resources” to complete procedures that were often complex and inadequate in the face of “Uber’s cynical actions”.

In the report, Simonnet pointed to Macron’s lack of “political will” as minister to enforce the law.

The agreement between the Economy Ministry and Uber, concluded in 2016, which allowed Uber drivers to have only seven hours of training instead of 250 hours in exchange for “stopping the UberPop service” is labelled a “hidden deal” in the report.

At the time, the UberPop service, which enabled private individuals to become drivers without any prior training, had angered taxi drivers, who saw it as unfair competition and responded by staging major strikes.

Contacted by EURACTIV, a Uber spokesperson stated that the company “openly contributed to the Committee’s investigation” and have transformed the way “Uber operates in France”.

According to figures provided by Uber, the company “guaranteed social protection for more than 100,000 people” who use the app in France, including both drivers and couriers.

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Consequences of the gig economy

Simonnet told a press conference that Macron had made sure public authorities were unable “to enforce the rule of law” and even trivialised the law’s violations while he was economy minister, and as president now.

In particular, she quoted a 2019 memo from the Labour Ministry showing to what extent France had embraced a form of the gig economy and how this affected many sectors, including delivery services, funeral services, personal assistance services, catering, driving schools, aviation and more.

Simonnet also pointed to another Labour Ministry memo which explicitly explains that platforms like Uber violate many laws and breach “the Labour Code, URSSAF (the French social security fund), the tax system, competition law and sector-specific regulations”.

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“Conspiracy-oriented” reporting

But according to the presidential majority, which supports Macron, no secret deal ever existed. From their view, the report is seen as a political tool for opposition parties to attack Macron, rather than as a fact-finding mission.

“There was no form of opacity, quid pro quo, secret ‘deal’, connivance between the public players and Uber when it arrived in France,” said Benjamin Haddad, a MP of Macron’s Renaissance and the president of the investigative committee.

According to him, MacGann himself did not even admit to a secret agreement.

“I don’t like the word ‘deal’ because it can give the public the impression that a bag of money is being passed around. This was not the case. It was a political agreement that was in no way unacceptable,” MacGann has said.

Haddad added that “there was no kind of indulgence towards Uber” on the part of the French government, citing the hearings of former prime ministers Bernard Cazeneuve, Manuel Valls, and other public officials.

According to him, Simonnet “has opted for partisan and conspiracy-oriented reporting” of the affair. Her interpretation of the facts only holds up if “the key players lied under oath”.

Recommendations

However, the two camps still agree on two recommendations.

They proposed launching a study to make the calendar of meetings between government representatives and lobbyists completely transparent and make it compulsory for MPs to indicate whether an amendment came from an influential group when tabling it.

Simonnet, for her part, proposed giving self-employed people working for platforms a “presumption of salaried status” ahead of the vote on the EU’s Platform Workers Directive, which is currently at the final stage of the EU legislative process.

On top of that, Simonnet also proposed tighter controls on platforms and sanctions by the authorities and criticised the government’s position on the EU Platform Workers Directive, where Paris pushed for narrowing the provisions that would reclassify bogus self-employed as employees.

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[Edited by Luca Bertuzzi/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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