Macron Shrugs Off Row Over The Help He Gave Uber to Enter The French Market

Paris (CNSNews.com) – French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday defended his role in helping the U.S. ride-hailing company Uber navigate France’s strict regulations when he was economy minister, saying he would “do it again” to help create jobs in the country.

“We are creating a sort of atmosphere in which seeing the heads of companies, in particular foreign ones, is a bad thing,” Macron told reporters. “But I acknowledge it completely.”

He said that, when he served as economy minister – from 2014-2016, under former President François Hollande – he was proud to be one “who fought to attract companies” to France.

“I fully acknowledge having seen foreign company executives,” Macron said. “If they created jobs in France, I am proud of it and I would do it again tomorrow, and after tomorrow.”

Parties on the far left and far right have expressed outrage after media outlets published reports arising from thousands of leaked documents dated 2014-2017 relating to Uber activities.

According to some of the documents, which were leaked to the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, high level Uber executives coordinated closely with Macron to work around restrictive regulations.

Hollande’s transportation minister of transportation, Alain Vidalies, was opposed to Uber, but despite laws designed to regulate public passenger vehicle transport, Macron was able to help Uber get into the French market.

Taxi drivers in France must buy a license which costs around $250,000 and undertake 250 hours of training. Uber drivers do not require a license, and Macron reduced their required training to just seven hours.

Tech policy expert Asma Mhalla told media outlets that she doubted the revelations would impact Macron’s second and final term as president, unless it was discovered that he had been paid for his help – and she said there was nothing to indicate that that had been the case.

But the publication of the “Uber files” have given Macron’s political opponents ammunition. Parties on the left said the revelations show that Macron is president of the wealthy, while those on the right said they provided further proof that he favors foreign companies over French ones.

Lawmakers from the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES), the left-wing coalition that is now the second-biggest in the National Assembly with 125 members, are demanding that Macron appear before the house to explain his role in Uber’s development in France.

They are demanding explanations about how Uber used Macron to enter the market despite fierce opposition from taxi organizations and unions. NUPES lawmakers want a commission of inquiry to be appointed, and some are even calling for criminal charges to be brought against the president, despite his presidential immunity.

The far-right National Rally, with 89 members after last month’s legislative election, is also demanding the establishment of a commission to investigate Macron’s role in the affair.

National Union of Taxis president Rachid Boudjema told France Info radio that the taxi industry “has the feeling that we have been betrayed – that the government of the time, especially the minister in question, favored a foreign company instead of small French companies.”

“Macron should explain what he did and how he helped Uber set up in France by breaking part of the Labor Code,” said Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the left-wing General Confederation of Labor union. “By promoting this kind of activity he is responsible for the social consequences for workers.”

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told the National Assembly that Macron’s role in the ministerial post “was to have contacts with the president of Uber and to open the market for online platforms.”

At the time, he said, online businesses were seen as “new buoyant markets.”

According to official figures 84,400 private vehicles used for public passenger transport (excluding buses) were on the roads in France at the end of 2017, 69 percent of them regular taxis and the rest comprising other types, including Uber.

By 2019, regular taxis accounted for 58 percent of the total, while other types of private vehicles used for public transport vehicles climbed to 42 percent. 

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