“Uber Files” is an investigation based on thousands of internal Uber documents sent by an anonymous source to the British daily The Guardianand forwarded to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJand to forty-two media partners, including The world. E-mails, presentations, meeting minutes… These 124,000 documents, dated from 2013 to 2017, offer a rare dive into the mysteries of a start-up which was then seeking to establish itself in metropolises around the world despite a unfavorable regulatory environment.
To go back in detail on these revelations, our journalists Damien Leloup, Abdelhak El Idrissi and Adrien Sénécat answered questions from readers of Monde.fr.
Emmanuel Macron was he in his role as Minister of the Economy by receiving the bosses of Uber?
Damien Leloup: A Minister of the Economy is, of course, in his role when he receives the CEO of a large company, a fortiori when it is in the news. On the other hand, it is more questionable to meet, in secret and on multiple occasions, this same CEO, Travis Kalanick [le fondateur d’Uber]to discuss a common strategy aimed at partially circumventing the laws passed by Parliament.
This is the whole question that arises, in a broader way, about lobbying: almost no one, left or right, believes that it should be totally banned. On the other hand, there is a certain consensus to say that it must be framed, and that it must be accompanied by a high level of transparency to avoid abuses. In the case of the meetings of Uber and Emmanuel Macron, at the time we went beyond the “classic” framework of a lobbyist who meets a minister once or twice to put forward his arguments.
Concretely, do these documents reveal any illegality in the actions and the relationship that Emmanuel Macron may have had with Uber?
Damien Leloup: To put it quickly, no, the documents we have analyzed and the interviews we have conducted do not reveal anything manifestly illegal in the conduct of Emmanuel Macron. On the other hand, they raise very many ethical and political questions, linked both to the exchanges and agreements concluded between the minister and the company, and to the fact that Uber is not quite a company like the others in the world. ‘era.
Whether or not we defend the model promoted by the company and the services it offered, it was then undeniably illegal, at the origin of a very violent social climate, and targeted by multiple investigations. Making it a privileged interlocutor, moreover without informing the ministers in charge of the file, is a political choice open to criticism on several levels.
Aren’t these practices similar to those of other lobbies?
Adrien Senecat: We don’t uncover lobbying, and we write regularly on these issues at World. The “Uber Files” survey, on the other hand, is unique in that we had access to a large part of the company’s “black box”, and were therefore able to get to the bottom of certain practices.
Take the example of economic studies remunerated by Uber. This practice, for a company, to finance third-party studies in the hope of finding communication arguments in them is relatively common. Many other companies use it and these collaborations are often mentioned, as was the case in the examples that interested us.
What, on the other hand, was not public, is that the researchers in contact with Uber have agreed to varying degrees to be part of the company’s communication campaign: one accepts being sent to him journalists to speak well of the platform before the publication of its study, the other intervenes during meetings with parliamentarians, etc. Hopefully, these ethically questionable practices aren’t the norm – even though Uber certainly didn’t invent them.
How does Uber violate the rule of law?
Adrien Senecat: Before diving into the “Uber Files”, we, like everyone else, experienced and scrutinized the development of Uber during the 2010s. At the time, the unrest caused by this platform all over the world were, above all, analyzed as the consequence of the breakthrough innovation it brought. To this were added colossal means, in particular to initiate all-out legal proceedings wherever there were problems.
Asserting one’s rights is, for Uber as for everyone else, a fundamental freedom. Uber has used these remedies to justify continuing certain activities deemed illegal, such as UberPop [service de conducteurs particuliers] in France. But the “Uber Files” reveal that in reality the company knew full well that it was not respecting the law. It was even an assumed strategy to establish itself.
These practices were even so assumed that the company developed systems to evade police checks, and tried to hinder the work of investigators by cutting off access to its data during searches. The rule of law has finally caught up with Uber: the company and two of its leaders were convicted at first instance and then on appeal for “illegal organization of a system for connecting customers” with non-professional drivers (UberPop) . The interested parties, however, appealed in cassation.
Is there a link between Uber and the financing of La République en Marche and the presidential campaign of candidate Macron?
Damien Leloup: Mark MacGann, the main lobbyist for Uber in Europe at the time [et qui est le lanceur d’alerte à l’origine de l’enquête]participated in a personal capacity in the launch of En Marche! [devenu La République en marche]. He makes absolutely no secret of it: he has made a donation – legal and personal – of a maximum possible of 7,500 euros to En Marche!, and has also organized “fundraising” dinners in the tech sector, inviting acquaintances from personal and professional circles. At the time, he was no longer an employee of Uber, but was still a consultant for the company for several months.
The consortium asked him the question of why he did this: he replied that he acted out of personal conviction, believing that Emmanuel Macron was a very good candidate, and discussions that we were able to consult confirm this. Our analysis is rather that Uber employees at the time and Emmanuel Macron largely shared the same vision of the world.
In the thousands and thousands of documents provided by the “whistleblower”, do they all relate to the Minister of the Economy at the time?
Abdelhak El Idrissi: The documents contained in the “Uber Files” do not only concern relations between Uber and the Ministry of the Economy. For France, we published an article on the way in which Uber disseminated on the Internet texts favorable to VTC before a crucial judicial decision by using the services of the specialized company iStrat. We also documented the techniques of the American company to make its app unusable for law enforcement, who wanted to control its drivers. In addition, more than forty media from twenty-nine different countries analyzed the data from the “Uber Files”. The revelations therefore relate to a wide variety of subjects.
What can drive a former lobbyist like Mark MacGann, obviously ready to do anything to impose his laws on a country, to become a whistleblower?
Damien Leloup: The question was, of course, put to him by our colleagues from Guardian, to whom he transmitted all the documents. He explained to them that he had experienced a long personal journey that led him to reflect a lot on his past role in the expansion of Uber, which he now considers to have been largely served by lies. In particular, he considers that the drivers were particularly mistreated by the company. This is a point that is frequently found in the journey of whistleblowers – Frances Haugen, of the “Facebook Files”, was initially convinced of the positive contributions of Facebook, as was Edward Snowden, who defined himself as a patriot, was initially convinced of the usefulness of NSA surveillance systems.
Since there is nothing to expect from a legal point of view, what do you think you can bring about with this case? A debate on the ethics of relations with lobbies?
Adrien Senecat: This investigation seems to us to be of public interest. Jean-François Kerléo, jurist and member of the Observatory of Public Ethics, for example told us: “Citizens must be able to understand how the law is created, what are the issues and the balance of power within power. Our survey shows that this is sometimes far from the case.
This is even so little the case that several former colleagues of Emmanuel Macron said they discovered the extent of the relationship between the former Minister of the Economy and Uber. Alain Vidalies, who was Secretary of State for Transport when Mr. Macron was at Bercy, said on Franceinfo be “stunned” at the publication of our investigation and asked for “a state response”. Bernard Cazeneuve, his interior colleague, assured us that he had not been informed of a “deal” between Uber and Emmanuel Macron. This is also what François Hollande said to Release.
Other former ministers told us the same thing, and it seems that the Uber file was indeed a subject of “tension” in the government at the time.
Beyond the facts, what are the recommendations that we could make to regulate this lobbying?
Adrien Senecat: From our point of view as journalists, we have indeed observed that safeguards against lobbying are insufficient in France. We interviewed specialists on the subject who mentioned several avenues, such as:
– Ban former MPs and senators from lobbying Parliament for one year after their term ends.
– Make the agendas of public leaders more transparent.
– Mention the origin of an amendment when it has been proposed by an interest representative.
More broadly, transparency is seen as a cultural issue: for its proponents, the simple fact that these debates are becoming part of mores can be seen as a step forward.