The taxi unions had warned: “We plan to seize all legal avenues so that government work can no longer be subjugated to private interests”, they wrote in a joint statement on July 18, after the revelations of the Uber Files. One of them, the UNT -National Union of Taxis-, will file a complaint against Emmanuel Macron for “influence peddling” and “illegal taking of interest”, indicates the Dépêche du midi this Wednesday. “The complaint will be filed by our lawyer at the end of the week or the beginning of next week”, assures the Parisian Rachid Boudjema, president of the UNT.
The Union Nationale des Taxis, one of the main unions in the sector, criticizes the head of state for having facilitated the establishment of Uber in the country when he was François Hollande’s Minister of the Economy, as noted the Uber Files, an investigation by several French and international media based on thousands of internal documents from the American company of private drivers Uber.
The newspaper Le Monde thus concluded that there was a secret “deal” between the company and Emmanuel Macron when he was minister (2014-2016). The daily showed that the former lobbyist in Europe for the company, at the time “senior adviser to the board of directors”, had contributed in 2016 to raising funds for the campaign of the future president.
Unfair competition
The UNT is also asking for the opening of a parliamentary inquiry, the union tells us. “The active and assumed involvement of the former Minister of Economy and Finance in the establishment in France of the VTC company Uber, has aroused deep indignation within the entire taxi profession”, explained Rachid Boudjema to the regional daily.
“This privileged relationship or commonly called with a deal between Uber and the former minister, undeniably deregulated the regulation of taxi operators”, he lamented, believing that unfair competition had been established when Uber arrived in France.
The president has swept away the many critics accusing him of being a “lobbyist” in recent days. In his interview of July 14, Emmanuel Macron denounced “cries of orfraies” and denied having worked specifically in favor of the company.