UBER FILES. An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published on July 10 returned to the establishment of the VTC giant in France, Uber, revealing brutal methods and the involvement of Emmanuel Macron.
How did Uber manage to become the international ride-hailing giant? The establishment of the American company would not always have been done according to the rules of the art. The “Uber Files” survey conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and published on Sunday July 10 lifts the veil on the methods and the network of politicians, of which Emmanuel Macron was a part, that Uber used and its manager from 2013 to 2017, Travis Kalanick. With several thousand supporting documents, sent anonymously to the British newspaper The Guardian and shared with the ICIJ, French Radio and The world looked at the role that the head of state played in the rise of American society during his tenure as Minister of the Economy, from 2014 to 2016.
A secret “deal” between Emmanuel Macron and Uber
Installed in Bercy between 2014 and 2016, Emmanuel Macron was a fervent and one of the only defenders of the company of VTC Uber in the face of a government very hostile to society according to The world which counts no less than 17 “significant” exchanges between the minister and the American firm between 2014 and 2016. The daily describes the President of the Republic as “a listening ear” for the group of lobbyists at the head of the Californian company: Pierre -Dimitri Gore-Coty, director of Uber Western Europe and now in charge of Uber Eats; Mark MacGann, chief lobbyist for Europe, Africa and the Middle East; David Plouffe, former adviser to Barack Obama and appointed vice-president of Uber; and the company’s founder and CEO, Travis Kalanick. A collaboration that remained secret and at the origin of a “deal” to “ensure that France works for Uber so that Uber can work in and for France”. An agreement by which Emmanuel Macron would have facilitated the conditions of access to a VTC driver’s license, among other things reducing the training period from 250 hours to only 7 on the occasion of a decree of 2016, after a year and a half discussion and political battles. Before ratifying the agreement with Uber, Emmanuel Macron would have already personally intervened for the benefit of the company in 2015, to cancel the ban imposed at the time by the police chief of Bouches-du-Rhône, Laurent Nunez, and aimed at Californian society.
Uber and borderline legal practices
In addition to the benefits that Uber would have derived from its relations with politicians, the investigation of the Uber files also reveals the use of brutal techniques and sometimes at the limit of legality. “The company has broken the law, deceived police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world,” writes The Guardian in its pages. Adding that Travis Kalanick would also have pushed his drivers to protest and encouraged questionable managerial practices. The group would also have evaded police searches by using the “kill switch”, a button blocking access to internal server and company data. A practice that would have been used in France according to French Radio which notes that “this obstruction tool was activated 13 times between November 2014 and December 2015 in seven countries: France, India, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Hungary and Romania.”