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The Multinationals Observatory, an online media dedicated to economic powers, published a report on GAFAM lobbying, reported by April (which was consulted). This 29-page document examines the practices of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, summed up as follows: “Rapidly increasing lobbying expenses, poaching of senior officials, contacts at the Élysée, financial partnerships with the media, think tanks and research institutions…»
Resources on an unprecedented scale
The authors of the report “GAFAM Nation. The web of influence of the giants of the web in France”, the journalists Chiara Pignatelli and Olivier Petitjean, underline it, “the “GAFAM” appear as multinationals like any other, using the same strategies of influence. But they also differ in several ways. First, by the scale of the financial means and resources at their disposal. Then by their ability to use levers of influence that other multinationals do not have at their disposal, notably through their links with all the media or even their user base of a completely unprecedented scale. Finally by the specificity of their economic model which requires new approaches and forms of regulation, constituting as many new battlefields of lobbying.
Among the many points of this report:
– Declared lobbying expenditure by GAFAM in France has tripled between 2017 and 2021, rising from 1.350 million euros annually to 4.075 million. The GAFAMs “also declared a total of 72 lobbying activities (meetings with public decision-makers, telephone exchanges, etc.) in 2021, compared to 15 in 2017. These orders of magnitude place the GAFAMs at the same level as the most active CAC40 groups in terms of lobbying in France.”
– At the same time, the GAFAMs secure the services of numerous lobbying firms: at least 8 in Paris and 10 in Brussels for Google, for example, according to data from the transparency registers.
– “The sectoral lobbies of the digital sector, which represent approximately 1.5 million euros of additional lobbying expenditure, all have GAFAM among their members, which makes it difficult to distinguish between the interests of GAFAM and those of the rest of the digital sector. .” The report mentions Numeum, AFNUM, ASIC and others.
A very discreet ministerial agenda
– “The greatest opacity continues to reign over meetings between French political leaders and representatives of GAFAM.” We know very little about it, while at European level more data is available: “We know that Google has benefited from no less than 72 meetings with the Commission chaired by Ursula von der Leyen since its entry operational in 2019. Meta had 66, Microsoft 65, Apple 32 and Amazon 27. Not to mention the main European lobby for the digital sector, Digital Europe, which had 53.
On the side of French public officials, “updating and advertising their agenda is completely random. The agenda of Jean-Noël Barrot, the current Minister Delegate in charge of the Digital Transition and Telecommunications, seems for example empty or practically empty.
– “The GAFAMs, starting with Google, have poached dozens of former senior officials or heads of regulatory authorities to help them in their influence work.” “According to the Corporate Europe Observatory and Lobbycontrol tally, 70% of Google and Meta lobbyists have previously worked in public institutions at national and/or European level” (the report cites several high-level examples of this practice of “gateways”). rotating” – including, outside GAFAM, former minister Jean-Louis Borloo at Huawei).
– “The web giants have entered into partnerships with think tanks, the media, universities and research institutions representing millions of euros in France.” Examples: “Among other multinationals, the Institut Montaigne counts among its funders Amazon, Doctolib, Google, Microsoft, or even Uber.”
“The Institut Choiseul is also a weighty think thank in France which has recently positioned itself on the issues of “sovereignty”. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Thales and CDiscount are among its funders. In collaboration with France Digitale, it notably published a report “For European digital and innovation champions”, supported by Google, Microsoft, Capgemini and CDiscount, which was presented to Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation , Research, Culture, Education and Youth.”
Macron and the supporting government
The storytelling of GAFAM, despite resistance, is reinforced by the “political orientations affirmed and assumed at the top of the State. Emmanuel Macron and the French government continue to make the narratives and success criteria constructed by Silicon Valley the alpha and omega of their economic policies. From the “start-up nation” of 2017 to the “100 French unicorns” of 2022, we are asked to compete on a field built by GAFAM, according to rules designed by them. The American giants promote a version of the “digital transition” that justifies the policies of privatization, reduction of expenditure in public services, “disruption” of the established social model.
At the same time, the States – and in particular the French State – seem increasingly hypnotized by the possibilities of control and surveillance opened up by the tools and infrastructures of the GAFAMs, at the risk of forgetting the respect of freedoms. civil. For several months, the French public authorities have been gargling about “digital sovereignty”, but this claim is based on a vision of the world and shared interests – which no doubt explains why this “sovereignty” is translated concretely, in terms of “cloud “for example, through new partnerships with GAFAM.”
In terms of choosing between free software and proprietary software, the report of the Observatory of multinationals returns to the case of National Education and its repeated partnerships with Microsoft (a point in development?), then Amazon.
“Two recent examples have come to illustrate the propensity of the French State to entrust yet strategic or sensitive missions to groups like Microsoft or Amazon, despite its professions of faith in matters of sovereignty. The two cases also illustrate the close relations that exist between these groups and the administration, which did not hesitate to entrust them with contracts without a call for tenders. These are the Health Data Hub (HDH, or Health Data Platform, PDS), and partnerships between the public investment bank BpiFrance and Amazon.
The report concludes with recommendations, calling for better supervision of lobbying in France. And for the State: “It is high time for the public authorities to strengthen their expertise in the digital field, to truly support the alternatives to GAFAM, and to promote the rise of civil society on these subjects.”
Read also
Funding of networks: GAFAMs in the crosshairs of Brussels – 12 September 2022
Microsoft and National Education: Anticor files a complaint – May 15, 2022
Lobbying: Google and Facebook spend record amounts in 2012 – 24 January 2013