Uber Files: The ideological overlaps between Uber
and Emmanuel Macron's campaign
By Damien
Leloup
Published
on July 12, 2022 at 07h10, updated at 07h10 on July 12, 2022
INVESTIGATION
For his first presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron received the support of
many supporters of the start-up, including its main lobbyist in Europe.
Mark
MacGann got to know Emmanuel Macron well. For two years, Uber's chief lobbyist
in Europe had multiple meetings, calls and text messages with the then French
minister for the economy. Despite some disappointments, he stuck with his first
impression of the man. He considered Mr. Macron to be a talented, charismatic
man who was trying to move France in the right direction. In early 2016, on the
sidelines of the Davos forum, Mr.MacGannn sent him a message to ask if he
needed help launching his presidential campaign. The rumor of Mr. Macron's
candidacy was already omnipresent, even though he would not officially declare
himself until November.
Uber Files:
An international investigation
Uber Files
is an investigation based on thousands of internal Uber documents passed on by
an anonymous source to the British newspaper The Guardian and shared with the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 42 partner
media outlets, including Le Monde.
Dating from
2013 to 2017, these 124,000 documents offer a rare insight into the inner
workings of a multinational company that was at the time seeking to establish
itself worldwide despite a regulatory context that was unfavorable to its
practices. The files shed light on Uber's lobbying actions with public
authorities and reveal possible illegal practices made by the Californian group
to get around laws.
When he
proposed to help the campaign, Mr. MacGann was no longer a full-time employee
of Uber. He left the company under conditions that would later become
conflictual as a result of disagreements over the financial conditions of his
departure. But he remained a "senior advisor to the board" until
August 2016. Despite this possible conflict of interest, Mr. Macron accepted
his offer and directed Mr.MacGannn to the main officials planning the still
confidential project to create his new party En Marche!, now known as La
République en Marche. The man who had been, just a few weeks earlier, the paid
lobbyist for a controversial company and was himself at the center of the news
became an activist for the future presidential party.
Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann says he joined the
Macronist party out of pure political conviction
Over the
next few months, Mr. MacGann actively participated in Mr. Macron's campaign,
including hosting fundraising dinners in Paris and the Silicon Valley. Guests
at these gatherings – tech entrepreneurs and investors from his address book –
were encouraged to contribute to Mr. Macron's campaign up to the legal limit,
7,500 euros per year. They were also receptive to some of the tax measures in
Mr. Macron's program, such as the abolition of wealth tax. Mr.MacGannn says he
joined the party out of pure political conviction, which is confirmed by
several exchanges from the time seen by Le Monde, in which he detailed his
enthusiasm for the economic and societal policies of the future president.
Blurring of
boundaries
The
documents from the Uber Files do not suggest the existence of any irregularity
in the financing or organization of Mr. Macron's campaign. Between Uber and En
Marche!, the overlap is above all ideological. As Mr. Macron has said many
times, his political project was very compatible with the model proposed by the
company, combining deregulation of protected sectors, liberalization of the
workforce and increased flexibility.
But the
Uber Files also confirm the existence of a certain blurring of boundaries
within the Macronist party of the time, in which personal commitment and
professional interest often came together. Evidence suggests this was
especially true in terms of Uber. As a document from Mr. Macron's campaign from
the 2017 "MacronLeaks" e-mail leaks shows, the future MP Pierre
Person, who at the time headed the Youth with Macron movement and who has since
left the presidential party, solicited a "helping hand" from Stéphane
Séjourné, an advisor to Mr. Macron, to support his application for a position
at Uber in 2015.
Not long
before, several key players in the 2016-2017 campaign had also been directly
involved in talks with Uber. Astrid Panosyan, a co-founder of En Marche! and
now an MP, participated as an adviser to Mr. Macron in meetings with Uber.
Julie Bonamy, who now runs Saint-Gobain's activities in Southeast Asia, was a
former digital sector specialist at En Marche! and participated in the talks
that led to the secret "deal" between the minister of the economy and
Uber on reducing the number of hours of training required to become a VTC
driver.
Strange situations
Also
included in En Marche! early supporters were Fabrice Comptour, at the time the
chief of staff for EU Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Elzbieta
Bienkowska, considered by Uber to be one of the company's top supporters in the
Commission. Shortly after the launch of En Marche!, Mr. Comptour notably
contributed to internal notes on European defense issues ; he told Le Monde he
never took part in discussions about collaborative economy or Uber whithin the
party. But there was also Christophe Caresche, a Socialist deputy who was
popular with Uber, the co-leader of the "reform faction" formed
around Manuel Valls and who would later support Mr. Macron. In February 2016,
Mr. Caresche organized a meeting for "reformer" parliamentarians with
Uber.
The overlap
between Mr. Macron's "start-up nation" and Uber is still active. The
sister of Jean-Noël Barrot, the new minister delegate for digital affairs
appointed on July 4, is none other than Hélène Barrot, Uber's communications
director for France and Western Europe. Mr. Barrot told the specialized media
outlet Context that he would "defer" from Uber-related topics.
In 2017,
this closeness led, at times, to some strange situations. Three months before
the first round of the presidential election, Mr. MacGann put the candidate's
team in touch with Jim Messina. The ex-advisor to Barack Obama had set up his
own consulting company, advised Uber and was eager to offer his services to En
Marche!. A meeting was arranged with Ismaël Emelien, one of Mr. Macron's
closest advisors, after which Mr. Messina sent a proposal: For 50,000 dollars a
month, excluding expenses, he offered to put "our experience in grassroots
and digital organizing" to the service of Mr. Macron. Mr. Emelien politely
declined the proposal, which was "way over our budget."
We are
interested in your experience using the site.
Mr. Messina
then responded by offering his services... for free. The offer was rejected
again. The documents in Uber Files do not specify why, but a quick reading of
the original quote sent by the Messina Group to Mr. Macron's campaign allows us
to assume the reasons for this disinterest. In just three pages, the document
proposes a copy-paste of Obama's 2008 strategy on social networks, which, nine
years later, was no longer innovative. Almost all of the tools that Mr. Messina
proposed to put in place were either inapplicable to the French electoral
system or already widely used by En Marche!.
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