This is the conclusion of “six months of work”. The parliamentary commission of inquiry into the “Uber Files” delivered its conclusions on Tuesday, July 18 in a report of more than 600 pages. This commission was launched in early February at the initiative of the group La France Insoumise (LFI), of which the deputy for Paris Danielle Simonnet is the rapporteur. In all, 120 people were heard – including former ministers Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve -, 67 interviewees and 85 hours of discussions were conducted to “shed light on this affair”.
The Uber Files refer to revelations made by an international consortium of journalists in the summer of 2022. In all, more than 120,000 documents were provided by Mark MacGannan, former Uber lobbyist to the British daily The Guardian, who par subsequently analyzed this data, in particular with franceinfo and Le Monde. These leaks show how Uber would have circumvented French legislation to impose itself on taxis. Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy of François Hollande, would have maintained close ties with Uber.
The commission of inquiry was chaired by the Renaissance deputy for Paris Benjamin Haddad, hence the differences with the rapporteur Danielle Simonnet. The latter also regretted “that the commission of inquiry was unable to hear any of the former members of the cabinet of the Minister of the Economy at the time, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, since the office of the commission of inquiry s is systematically opposed to it”.
What are the conclusions of the deputies? Le Figaro takes stock.
This is the main conclusion of this parliamentary work. “In reality, Uber has found allies at the highest level of the State, starting with Mr. Emmanuel Macron, as Minister of the Economy and then as President of the Republic”, notes the report from its introduction. . “The confidentiality and the intensity of the contacts between Uber, Mr. Emmanuel Macron and his cabinet testify to an opaque but privileged relationship”, he continues.
In detail, a “hidden” deal” would have been passed between Uber and Emmanuel Macron allowing in particular “to lighten the training and examination conditions imposed on VTC drivers”, the number of hours of compulsory training to become Uber driver being lowered from 250 to seven.
In exchange, Uber agreed to end its UberPop service, which allowed anyone to act as an unlicensed Uber driver. A practice “illegal since the entry into force of the “Thevenoud law”” in 2014 which reserves the transport of people to taxis and VTCs. UberPop was a remunerative service and therefore could not be considered as carpooling, the latter practice stopping at a defrayal.
Also, the deputies confirm the existence of a Kill Switch, a device allowing Uber to delete data from its computers in the event of a police intervention, activated by software called Casper.
During his hearings, Mark MacGann “publicly admitted […] having given money and having participated in fundraising” in favor of the candidate Emmanuel Macron, even though he was still working as a lobbyist for Uber. “Many of us were seduced by its promises, its freshness, its dynamism but also by its project. I could contribute to his campaign up to 7500 euros per fiscal year, which I did in 2016 and 2017 from my personal funds. I no longer received any income from Uber – I even had no income anymore, ”he defended himself.
Similarly, according to Mark MacGann, Emmanuel Macron would have invited the general manager of Uber France Thibaud Simphal to dinner “to ask him if he wishes to participate in the financing of his campaign”. What he would have approved while “proposing to involve his brother-in-law and his sister […] both having contacts with investors”. But according to the report, the links between Uber and Emmanuel Macron do not end when he becomes President of the Élysée. Thirty-four direct exchanges would have taken place between 2018 and 2022, while 83 such exchanges would have taken place between the Ministry of Transport and Uber.
Another advanced point is Uber’s unfulfilled promises on job creation. According to sociologist Sophie Bernard, interviewed by the commission of inquiry, “it was not to escape unemployment that the drivers turned to Uber, but to replace a precarious contract”. Clearly, already precarious workers have turned to another form of employment, just as precarious. In the extension, the commission of inquiry points to an “uberization” which has extended “to new sectors in particular delivery” such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo or Getir.
According to the report, the creation of the Employment Platforms Regulatory Agency (Arpe) in 2021 – which was intended to regulate this sector – was then only “a maneuver to circumvent the social rights of workers through the creation of a so-called social dialogue” to avoid a “requalification of the activity of workers as wage earners”. Its president Bruno Mettling is himself implicated for having “carried out consulting activities, at the request of AT Kearney (a consulting firm, editor’s note) acting on behalf of Uber”, shortly before his appointment. Danielle Simonnet felt that this was intended to “influence the definition of the framework to be given to the social dialogue under construction”.
In all, the commission of inquiry makes 47 proposals, of which “12 of them are priorities”. At the head of the gondola, the desire to “establish a presumption of employment for platform workers”, in accordance with the wishes of the European Parliament. The government – and in particular the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt – wishes more the establishment of a “presumption of independence”, points out the report. With this presumption of employment, drivers “would be considered as employees having a” working relationship “with their employer and not as self-employed, opening the way to many social rights”, reports all of Europe.
The president of the commission of inquiry Benjamin Haddad severely criticized the conclusions of the report, accusing the rapporteur Danielle Simmonnet of politicizing the case. “There was no compromise, no secret ‘deal’, no conflict of interest, no quid pro quo, contrary to what our rapporteur tries to demonstrate in vain in her report”, he for his part noted. The final report was validated by twelve Nupes, Liot and National Rally (RN) deputies. The deputies from the presidential majority and the only elected Les Républicains (LR) abstained.
