Yahoo Finance Macron held 'spectacular' meeting with Uber as it lobbied to rewrite taxi laws
Uber lobbied the French President Emmanuel Macron in the hope of writing future laws regulating taxi app services, leaked documents have revealed.
Mr Macron is said to have held a meeting with executives from the taxi company that they described as "spectacular" when he was serving as economy minister in 2014, as Uber sought to disrupt the existing market.
Travis Kalanick, the company's former chief executive, was on first name terms with the politician despite opposition and violent protests by French drivers against the US-headquartered ride-hailing app, the BBC reported.
Messages between the two suggested that Kalanick felt comfortable enough to recommend that Uber should effectively write French laws regulating ride-sharing services, then a new concept.
In an email to Mr Macron, he is alleged to have said: "Uber will provide an outline for a regulatory framework for ridesharing. We will connect our respective teams to start working on a feasible proposal that could become the formal framework in France."
Mark MacGann, a lobbyist for Uber, reportedly described one meeting as "spectacular. Like I've never seen", and added: "We will dance soon."
On another occasion, Uber is reported to have written to Mr Macron to say it was "extremely grateful" for his support. The company said: "The openness and welcome we receive is unusual in government-industry relations."
Former EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes was also closely involved with the company, with the BBC alleging she secretly began working for Uber before leaving her influential post within the political bloc. Ms Kroes denies the allegations.
Other messages referred to an internal “kill switch” developed by Uber in response to raids by police on its branch offices. When a raid took place company executives would order the switch to be pulled, severing the branch from the main IT network and preventing police from gaining access to company files.
The email from Mr Kalanick to Mr Macron was one of 124,000 seen by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, forming a cache of messages leaked from inside Uber. They were sent between 2013 and 2017 and provide an insight into the company’s aggressive expansion strategy between those dates.
Mr Kalanick left Uber in 2017 after a string of scandals, culminating in an internal investigation led by the former US attorney general Eric Holder which made 47 recommendations to the company’s board.
An Uber spokesman said: “We’ve moved from an era of confrontation to one of collaboration. We have not and will not make excuses for past behaviour that is clearly not in line with our present values.”
