The French president has never hidden that he was one of the first Uber fans. But documents suggest his support for the controversial company went far beyond what has been publicly known.
July 10, 2022 at 12:00 EDT
(Illustration by Lucy Naland / Washington Post; Eliot Blondet / AFP / Getty; Uber screenshots; iStock) Comment on this story
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PARIS – When Uber rushed to expand across Europe, company executives received worrying news from the south of France. A local official in the port city of Marseille it just seemed to have banned the UberX service, launching the company’s plans for the country in turmoil.
Mark MacGann, Uber’s top European lobbyist, called for help. He sent a text message to Emmanuel Macron, who in the autumn of 2015 was the French Minister of Economy.
The next morning, MacGann received a response. “I’ll look at it personally,” Macron wrote. “Let’s keep calm at this stage,” he added.
The local authority marched back the same day.
It’s no secret that Macron, who became president of France in 2017, was one of the first proponents of Uber’s controversial expansion, which involved sometimes violent clashes between taxi drivers and Uber taxi drivers. But the internal messages of the company’s executives from 2013 to 2017 suggest that Macron’s support went far beyond what has been publicly known and sometimes it came into conflict with the policies of the left-wing government he served.
Internally, an Uber lobbyist described Macron as a “true ally.” At times, the scope of his first support surprised even company executives.
The documents are part of the Uber Files, a collection of more than 124,000 internal records obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-DC-based nonprofit newsroom that helped lead the project. and dozens of other news. organizations around the world, including The Washington Post. The documents go back more than half a decade, to a period between 2013 and 2017, but key excerpts relate directly to how Macron has attempted to implement his agenda as president.
Over the past five years, he has faced a growing backlash over the way he liberalized the French economy, arousing anyone who expressed concern about the social impact of their movements, according to his critics.
Read the key points of the Uber Files research
Macron was re-elected for another term in April but later he lost the absolute parliamentary majority. Far-left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a staunch critic of Uber and other multinationals operating in France, is now the public face of the largest opposition bloc in the lower house of parliament.
Mélenchon campaigned heavily for his criticism of the “uberization” of French society, an umbrella term used to describe transportation and home delivery services, and criticized Macron’s support for a sector he believes has undermined the rights of French workers.
Uber documents suggest so The concerns expressed years ago about how Uber entered the French market were, in some cases, justified. While enraged taxi drivers, fearing for their professional survival, clashed with their Uber competitors on the streets of Paris in 2015 and 2016, some company executives saw physical confrontations as a means to gain public sympathy and support.
Uber’s French resistance becomes violent
They believed Macron was willing to support them by pushing for a more lenient treatment of the company by regulators. As the company’s legal scrutiny increased, including from the Directorate General of Competition, Consumption and Fraud Prevention, an authority attached to Macron’s own ministry, MacGann noted in a 2014 email to his colleagues that Macron had “asked his cabinet to speak to the DGCCRF. Ask them to be ‘less conservative'” in interpreting the law. MacGann did not answer questions about these exchanges, but said that “he met and met Emmanuel Macron “during his stay at Uber.
Macron’s underlying commitment to Uber’s business model was rarely questioned, although executives later concluded that it was a less valuable ally than they had thought.
In a statement in response to the documents, the French presidency said that the “economic and employment policies of the time, in which [Macron] he was an active participant, they are known “.
“His duties naturally led him to get to know and interact with many companies involved in the strong change that arose during those years in the services sector, which had to be facilitated by unblocking administrative and regulatory barriers,” he said. the Elysee, the office of the French presidency.
Although the Elysée did not directly answer questions about Uber’s perception that Macron might have been willing to intervene with the French authorities on behalf of the company, Emmanuel Lacresse, Macron’s former deputy chief of staff, he denied that it was so. “The minister has never intervened in the prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône with regard to the suspension of the Uber X service in Marseille, nor in any legal proceedings related to the Uber company. Instructions were not given to the DGCCRF either,” he said. write Lacresse in a statement. (Bouches du Rhône prefecture was the local authority that appeared to have banned UberX in 2015).
In response, Laurent Nuñez, the official who infuriated Uber in 2015 with his decision in Marseilles and who is now a top national security official under Macron, denied having been pressured by Macron’s economy ministry to adopt a more lenient approach at the time.
A DGCCRF spokesman has “vigorously” denied that Macron has put pressure on authority. “Our investigation services have not been pressured or induced into any form of clemency about the Uber case,” he said.
The Uber idea was born in part in France in 2008, according to Kalanick, and the company’s path there was partly paved. by a major deregulation effort that Macron helped defend. But Uber took it seriously by having a major French presence only when Macron became Economy Minister in 2014.
Macron presided over one of the most important government departments from the third floor of the “Bercy fortress.” In the imposing building that stands out on the banks of the Seine, Macron met with Uber executives and came up with strategies on movements that sometimes seemed to oppose the goals of then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls and others who advocated stricter rules for Uber. and similar companies.
In 2015, Uber spoke with Macron to encourage a “supportive” Member of Parliament to try to amend one of Macron’s legislative proposals to make it more user-friendly with Uber. His alternative plan, according to an internal summary by Thibaud Simphal, then CEO of Uber in France, was a “strong communications campaign over the next four weeks,” as Macron and Uber jointly pushed the rules to make it easier for company hiring professional drivers. .
Internal documents suggest that in exchange for softened rules, Uber may have disconnected its most controversial service in the country, UberPop, which had relied on unprofessional drivers. Instead, it would focus on a model focused on licensed drivers.
On July 3, the day Uber suspended UberPop, executives shared a screenshot among themselves that appeared to show Macron telling then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick that Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve , had “accepted the agreement.”
“Cazeneuve will keep the taxi quiet and I will meet all next week to prepare the reform and correct the law,” the message continued.
In 2016, months after UberPop’s suspension, a government decree appeared to change the rules in favor of Uber, significantly reducing the number of training hours required.
Cazeneuve, in response to a request for comment, denied knowledge of an agreement. In a statement, Uber said “it is false to suggest that there was an agreement or that the rules were eased.” The company added that the suspension of its UberPop service was “caused by the level of violence directed at our users, both drivers and motorcyclists, which no longer allowed us to operate the service safely” and “was in no way followed by a more favorable regulations “. ”
“Uber never benefited from any favor or privilege from the prefectures, the Ministry of Economy or the deputies in France. All my interactions with the public authorities were carried out in good faith,” Simphal who still works for the company as a global head of sustainability, it said in a statement.
In an answer to questions from The Post and other news organizations, Kalanick did not directly address his text conversation with Macron on July 3rd. Devan Spurgeon, a spokesman for Kalanick, said in a statement that “Uber’s expansion initiatives were led by more than a hundred leaders in dozens of countries around the world and at all times under direct supervision. and with the full approval of Uber’s strong legal, policy, and compliance groups. “
Uber’s relationship with Macron was especially sensitive because its operations in France were, at the time, under increasing legal scrutiny. Months before Macron had offered to investigate the apparent suspension of UberX by the Marseille official, a service that relies on professional drivers, two company executives were arrested. They were later convicted of complicity in the operation of an illegal transport service. A ruling by France’s high court is still pending.
Uber’s internal documents show that Macron was in frequent contact with Uber officials at the time, including Kalanick.
Apparently, Uber’s presentation to the French public seemed perfect for Macron’s hopes of turning France into a “home nation.” Both he and the company promised that their plans would benefit disadvantaged groups abandoned in the past.
Uber took advantage of violent attacks on its drivers to put pressure on politicians
Uber initially recruited many drivers from some of the poorest in the country …