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French President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure to explain his past support for phone app taxi company Uber while serving as economy minister from 2014 to 2016.
These developments come after thousands of documents were leaked to the press, prompting critics to raise questions about the issue.
According to the media investigations carried out by the French newspaper “Le Monde” and the British newspaper “The Guardian”, Mr. Macron, in his capacity as Minister of Economy, had several meetings with Uber executives, which he did not make public.
Citing internal documents as well as phone messages, Le Monde also claimed that Uber had reached a “secret agreement” with Mr Macron on regulations related to the company’s services, which was expected to “disrupt” the traditional market. of taxis.
Opposition MPs, from the far left and far right, attacked the president, a former banker who positioned himself as a pro-entrepreneurship and pro-innovation politician, in 2014.
Mr Macron was “a lobbyist at the service of foreign private economic interests”, far-right lawmaker Sebastien Chenu told France Info radio on Monday morning.
Far-left lawmaker Alexis Corbiere of the France Unbowed party suggested a parliamentary inquiry could embarrass the 44-year-old leader, who lost his majority in the National Assembly during last month’s election.
“It is a very serious issue that with this secret pact, Mr. Macron broke the rules of the taxi industry,” he said on public television.
“Obviously we will ask questions to the government and conduct a parliamentary investigation”, he added.
As announced last week, the “France Unbowed” party is expected to present a no-confidence motion against the government, which is not expected to pass, however.
According to press reports, based on “a secret agreement”, Mr Macron had promised to help Uber with a new law, introduced in 2014, which regulated new taxi services based on digital apps.
Le Monde newspaper wrote that Mr Macron had appeared “more than a supporter and almost a partner” of Uber during 17 meetings held by him, or members of his staff, with company executives, at a time when the firm was facing numerous legal questions.
Mr Macron rarely responds to public criticism. His agenda on Monday included a meeting with the heads of multinational companies in France, at the annual high-level meeting called “Choose France” held in Versailles.
An aide to Mr Macron said about 180 investors were expected to attend, an increase from previous years, an indication he said of “very strong interest from foreign investors after the president’s (Macron) re-election”.
Contacted by AFP news agency, Uber France confirmed that the company had been in contact with Mr. Macron while he was serving as economy minister.
The meetings had been part of his normal ministerial engagements covering the private employment sector, he said.
The president’s office told “AFP” that at that time Mr. Macron had “naturally” been in contact with “many companies involved in the profound change of services during those years, which should be facilitated thanks to the removal of some administrative blockages or regulatory.
Mr Macron was a vocal and public supporter of Uber when the company arrived in France, at odds with many colleagues in the Socialist government at the time.
He defended it by saying it provides jobs for people in those low-income areas and serves as a tool to break the monopoly held by taxi companies.
“Go to Stains (a poor area in the north of Paris) and tell the young people there who willingly work for Uber that they would be better off doing nothing, or doing drugs,” Mr Macron said. during an interview for “Mediapart” newspaper in 2016.
On Monday, Mr. Macron was supported by those people who remembered the time of long waits for taxis in Paris and other cities of the country, or the problems with taxi drivers who refused to accept payments with bank cards.
The investigation called the “Uber Files” is based on the leak of tens of thousands of documents to the British newspaper “The Guardian” by an anonymous source and is coordinated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, based in Washington.
The consortium works with 42 partner media companies around the world./VOA
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