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Uber files leak: Macron’s dealings may prompt parliamentary inquiry
France’s left-leaning and far-right opposition parties, emboldened by recent gains in the country’s parliamentary election, jumped on the revelations on Sunday night and Monday morning, describing them as a looming “state scandal” and potential evidence of a “collusion of interests.”
Macron never hid that he was an early Uber supporter. But company executives’ internal messages from 2013 to 2017 suggest that his backing went far beyond what had been known publicly — and on occasion conflicted with the policies of the left-leaning government he served at the time.
The documents are part of the Uber Files, a trove of more than 124,000 internal records obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit newsroom, and dozens of other news organizations worldwide, including The Washington Post.
On Monday, former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann publicly identified himself as the source of the files. The Washington Post and other project partners previously had agreed to keep his identity confidential.
According to the files, Uber managers and lobbyists believed that Macron was willing to support them by pushing regulators to be “less conservative” in their interpretation of rules limiting the company’s operations, and by attempting to ease rules that hampered the company’s expansion in France. At times, Uber was even surprised by the extent of his backing, internal communications show.
Asked for comment ahead of publication of the documents, the French presidency said in a statement to The Post and other outlets that the “economic and employment policies at the time, in which [Macron] was an active participant, are well known” and that his “functions naturally led him to meet and interact with many companies.” Asked for additional comment after publication, the Élysée on Monday referred reporters back to its earlier statement.
“I knew that [Macron] was in favor of Uber,” said Alain Vidalies, who was France’s transportation state secretary from 2014 to 2017. But “I must say that even I am flabbergasted,” Vidalies told France’s public broadcaster.
Although the documents end in 2017, the year Macron was elected president, they directly relate to how Macron has tried to implement his agenda since.
Macron, who was reelected in April, has sought to liberalize the French economy — and, according to his critics, that has involved steamrolling anyone who raises concerns over the social impact of his moves.
That criticism is expected to find a bigger stage in Parliament during his second term, now that he has lost his absolute parliamentary majority, amid gains from the far left and far right. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a staunch critic of Uber and other multinationals operating in France, is now the public face of the biggest opposition bloc in the lower house of Parliament, where the possible inquiry would take place.
Mélenchon has regularly complained of the “uberization” of French society, an umbrella term used to describe ride-hailing and home delivery services, and he lashed out against Macron’s support for a sector that he views as having undermined worker rights.
Members and allies of Mélenchon’s party, France Unbowed, were among the most vocal critics on Monday.
Mathilde Panot, the alliance’s leader in Parliament, suggested that Macron had helped Uber in “looting the country” and criticized the president for having acted as a “lobbyist for a U.S. multinational aiming to permanently deregulate labor law.”
Aurélien Taché, a left-wing member of Parliament, said the files raised questions about “Emmanuel Macron’s conception of loyalty in politics, toward the government to which he belonged at the time and toward his country.”
According to the files, Macron was in frequent contact with Uber executives between 2014 and 2016 and strategized over moves that at times appeared to conflict with the objectives of then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls and others who advocated stricter rules for Uber and similar companies.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party — which, despite her defeat in the presidential contest, won 11 times more seats in last month’s parliamentary election than it did in 2017 — similarly seized on the files, describing them as “the first scandal of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.”
But Macron’s allies — who still hold a simple majority in Parliament — appeared ready to defend his interactions with the company.
“Above all, he is the president who has allowed the arrival of a certain number of companies and indeed to promote the emergence of companies in our country, promote their establishment, support our reindustrialization, facilitate job creation. I believe that this is clearly the role of a minister of the economy and of a head of state,” Aurore Bergé, who leads Macron’s party in Parliament, said on French TV.
The Uber files may raise questions in France that go beyond the extent of Macron’s support.
The files also show that Uber used covert tech to thwart government raids during its global expansion. And as enraged taxi drivers, fearing for their professional survival, clashed with their Uber competitors on the streets of Paris in 2015 and 2016, some company executives viewed the physical confrontations as a means to win public sympathy and support.
“The most important question” now, wrote Cédric O, France’s former state secretary for digital affairs under Macron, “is whether or not the establishment [of Uber] was a good thing socially and economically.”
France Parliamentary Election Results Live: Macron Expected to Lose Absolute Majority
PARIS — The centrist coalition supporting President Emmanuel Macron of France was projected to come out ahead in crucial parliamentary elections on Sunday, but a strong showing by an alliance of left-wing parties and a far-right surge prevented Mr. Macron’s forces from securing an absolute majority of seats, a setback that could complicate his second term.
Projections based on preliminary vote counts gave Mr. Macron’s centrist coalition 205 to 250 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament — more than any other political group, but less than half of all seats.
For the first time in 20 years, a newly elected president appeared to have failed to muster an absolute majority in the National Assembly, which won’t grind Mr. Macron’s domestic agenda to a halt, but will shift influence back to Parliament after a first term during which Mr. Macron’s top-down style of governing had mostly marginalized lawmakers.
In 2017, when Mr. Macron was elected for the first time, his party and its allies clinched a commanding majority of 350 seats in the lower house of Parliament, which was mostly compliant with his plans. This time, however, he will have to pay much closer attention to the balance of power in the National Assembly.
Mr. Macron’s coalition, known as Ensemble, should still be able to pass some bills. But his party, La République en Marche, will be much more dependent on its centrist allies than it was during his first term, especially to pass contentions projects like his plan to raise the legal age of retirement to 65 from 62. In some cases, Mr. Macron might even have to reach across the aisle to opposing lawmakers, most likely on the right, to secure a bill’s passage.
The vote was also marred by record-low turnout, a warning sign for Mr. Macron, who has promised to rule closer to the people for his second term. Only about 46 percent of the French electorate went to the ballot box, according to projections, the second-lowest level since 1958.
The alliance of left-wing parties, known as the Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale, or NUPES, and led by the leftist veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was expected to get 150 to 190 seats.
That was not enough to seize control of the National Assembly and force Mr. Macron to appoint Mr. Mélenchon prime minister, as NUPES had hoped. But it was a strong showing for leftist parties that had been largely written off as hopelessly divided.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party was also projected to secure 75 to 100 seats in the National Assembly, a record that could make it the third biggest political force in the lower house.
The alliance is dominated by France Unbowed, Mr. Mélenchon’s party, and also includes the Socialist, Green and Communist parties. It will still be the main opposition force in the National Assembly, but major policy differences among coalition members on issues like the European Union could resurface once Parliament is in session.
Lawmakers are elected for five years, and Mr. Macron will not have to contend with midterm elections over the next five years, ensuring that his majority cannot be overturned overnight.
But his party will be far more dependent on its allies to keep control. That could give more leverage to parties like Horizons, a center-right group founded by Mr. Macron’s former prime minister, Édouard Philippe, who is more of a fiscal hawk and could demand tweaks to legislation.
The far right was one of the driving forces in the presidential race, but its leader, Marine Le Pen, was convincingly defeated by Mr. Macron and then ran a lackluster campaign for the parliamentary election, although her party is still expected to secure a record number of seats.
Instead, much of the campaign has been a bruising confrontation between the leftist coalition and Mr. Macron’s forces, with both sides describing a potential victory by their opponents as an unmitigated catastrophe.
The leftist coalition has promised voters they could metaphorically “elect” Mr. Mélenchon prime minister, and he has used his oratory to galvanize left-wing voters after a disastrous presidential election in which the left was divided and largely sidelined.
Mr. Mélenchon has vowed that his coalition would make the legal retirement age 60, two years earlier than it is now, raise the monthly minimum wage to 1,500 euros, or $1,580, overhaul the Constitution to reduce presidential powers and phase out nuclear power.
Mr. Macron, by contrast, appeared disengaged and more preoccupied with France’s diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. Speaking on an airport tarmac before a trip to Eastern Europe that took him to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, this week, he had urged voters to give him a “solid majority” for the “superior interest of the nation,” but he did little campaigning himself.
Mr. Macron had also hoped to inject new life into his party’s campaign by appointing new ministers, and, for the first time in 30 years, a female prime minister, Élisabeth Borne. But his cabinet was immediately roiled by crisis, including rape accusations against a minister and an outcry over the government’s handling of a chaotic Champions League soccer final outside Paris.
France President Macron’s centrist party poised to keep majority in parliamentary elections
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Despite a historically low turnout in France’s parliamentary elections, French President Emmanuel Macron’s party and its allies were expected just barely clinch a majority after the first round of voting, according to early projections.
Projections based on partial election results showed that at the national level, Macron’s party got about 25-26% of the vote, making them neck-in-neck with a new coalition comprising hard-left candidates.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron waves as he leaves the polling station after voting in the first round of French parliamentary election in Le Touquet, northern France, Sunday, June 12, 2022.
(Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)
Still, Macron’s candidates are projected to win in a greater number of districts than their leftist rivals, giving the president a majority.
Some 6,000 candidates were running Sunday for 577 seats in France’s National Assembly in the first round of the election. The two-round voting system is complex and not proportionate to the nationwide support for a party. For French races that did not have a decisive winner on Sunday, up to four candidates who get at least 12.5% support will compete in a second round of voting on June 19.
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Kitchen table issues have dominated the campaign, but voter enthusiasm has been muted. At Sunday’s turnout, less than half of France’s 48.7 million voters had cast ballots.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had hoped the election would vault him into the prime minister’s post, was among only a trickle of voters as he cast his ballot in Marseille, a southern port city.
Hard-left figure Jean-Luc Melenchon casts his ballot in the first round of the parliamentary election, Sunday, June 12, 2022, in Marseille, southern France.
(AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
Following Macron’s reelection in May, his centrist coalition was seeking an absolute majority that would enable it to implement his campaign promises like cutting taxes and raising France’s retirement age from 62 to 65.
Yet Sunday’s projection showed Macron’s party and allies could have trouble getting more than half the seats at the Assembly. A government with a large (but not absolute) majority would still be able to rule, but would have to seek some support from opposition legislators.
Polling agencies estimated that Macron’s centrists could win from 255 to over 300 seats, while Mélenchon’s leftist coalition could win more than 200 seats. The National Assembly has final say over the Senate when it comes to voting in laws.
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Mélenchon’s platform includes a significant minimum wage increase, lowering the retirement age to 60, and locking in energy prices, which have been soaring due to the war in Ukraine. He is an anti-globalization firebrand who has called for France to pull out of NATO and “disobey” EU rules.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hezbollah loses majority in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections
In the election held Sunday, Hezbollah and its allies ran against a Saudi-aligned bloc headed by politicians who came to prominence as warlords during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war. That group is led by the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Christian party whose rallying cry is Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Neither bloc won a parliamentary majority, according to representatives from Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, though the Hezbollah-led alliance retained the larger share of seats, with 61 so far — down from at least 70 after the last parliamentary elections in 2018. Hezbollah could regain the majority if it persuaded some independent candidates to join its bloc.
The new parliament will select the country’s next prime minister and elect a new president after the term of Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, ends in October. Analysts said a more even distribution of seats between the blocs would probably result in gridlock, delaying the government’s formation.
If the results hold, one fight in the new political landscape could be over who serves as the parliament’s speaker, said Maha Yahya, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center. Hezbollah’s losses mean that the current speaker, Nabih Berri, who has held the position since 1992 and is one of Hezbollah’s closest allies, may lose his post.
Asked whether the Lebanese Forces would oppose Berri, a spokesman said, “It goes without saying that things cannot continue the way they were.”
Political squabbling could be disastrous for Lebanon, which urgently needs a government that can continue negotiations for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund. Delays could also imperil pledges of aid from the international community, including governments such as France and Saudi Arabia that have been hesitant to fund a Hezbollah-controlled government.
More than a dozen seats in parliament went to independent candidates who sprang out of a protest movement two years ago against Lebanon’s political class, widely seen as corrupt and ineffective. Many of the independents had also promised to deliver justice to victims of an explosion in Beirut’s port in 2020 that killed moire than 200 people and destroyed much of the city’s center.
The victorious independents included Elias Jradi, an ophthalmologist who won a seat previously held by a Hezbollah ally in southern Lebanon, the group’s center of support, and Ibrahim Mneimneh, an architect from Beirut who made headlines when he said in an interview that he was in favor of removing laws that criminalize homosexuality.
The elections came amid claims by the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, an independent monitor, of “blatant violations, pressure, intimidation and weak organization.” The recorded violations included violence against the LADE’s volunteer monitors; party supporters unlawfully following voters to booths; and ballot boxes missing accompanying records.
The European Union’s Election Observation Mission also said in a preliminary report that “elections were overshadowed by widespread practices of vote buying and clientelism.”
Turnout was low in cities across Lebanon, despite entreaties by politicians for citizens to go to the polls. In Beirut, Rania Safar, a 48-year-old schoolteacher, cast her vote against traditional parties, voicing cautious hope for change.
“The road will be long,” she said, “but I have hopes that there will be breakthroughs.”
Lebanon election: Hezbollah’s coalition loses parliamentary majority
Reformist political groups that sprung out of the nationwide demonstrations have won around 10% of the country’s parliamentary seats, according to a CNN tally, in a sign of growing discontent with a ruling elite widely blamed for the country’s economic collapse. Reformist parties won only one seat in the previous election cycle in 2018.
Critics of Hezbollah, which has held a coalition majority in parliament for the last four years, blamed the group and its political allies for the country’s economic collapse. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied responsibility, pointing to widespread allegations of corruption among its political rivals.
Relations between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia worsened significantly during Hezbollah’s time as parliament’s biggest bloc.
The group’s main Christian rival — the Saudi-allied Lebanese Forces — gained new seats. Several prominent allies who are long-time supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have also lost seats in parliament.
In the country’s third electoral southern district, where Hezbollah and its allies have steadily consolidated their political power since they first participated in elections in 1992, a reformist candidate unseated a pro-Assad Hezbollah ally.
Hezbollah’s electoral alliances previously enjoyed nearly uncontested support in southern Lebanon, where the group led an armed resistance campaign that drove out a 22-year Israeli occupation in 2000 and is credited with developing much of the infrastructure in rural areas.
“Lebanese voters have voted tactically to pierce Hezbollah’s popular strongholds, weaken its main Christian ally and eliminate some of Syria’s infamous protégés,” elections and governance expert Maroun Sfeir told CNN. “This vote has also led to the emergence of an independent political bloc that could impact the dynamics in a severely fragmented parliament.”
But the Tehran-backed Shia group made up for some of those losses by making gains among Sunni constituencies who typically vote for candidates backed former prime minister and Sunni leader Saad Hariri, who quit politics earlier this year.
Hariri’s dramatic exit from Lebanon’s political scene left the strategic Sunni vote up for grabs. Most of the new reformist MPs — who are largely socially progressive — were voted in by Sunni-majority areas. Outside of the capital Beirut, Sunni voters largely shunned the vote, with many voicing disgruntlement with a political elite plagued by allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
The United Nations and the World Bank blame Lebanon’s ruling elite for the country’s economic collapse, considered to be one of the world’s worst since the mid 19th century.
Since October 2019, the majority of Lebanon’s population has fallen into poverty, inflation has risen to over 200% and deposits have largely vaporized amidst a devastating banking crisis. A huge blast at Beirut’s port killed over 200 people in an incident blamed on inappropriately stored explosive ammonium nitrate that successive governments were repeatedly warned about.
That economic crisis appears to have galvanized the vote for reformists who had previously struggled to make inroads in political leadership. But the financial dire straits also prompted large numbers of would-be voters to steer clear of the polls, with many saying they have lost faith Lebanon’s political system.
The election was also riddled with allegations of voter fraud. The country’s main election observers — The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) — said they documented 3,600 violations.
As a new parliament is set to be sworn in, Lebanese citizens openly question whether new politicians can alleviate the country’s many economic and political woes. Later this year, the tenure of the country’s President Michel Aoun — a Hezbollah ally — will end, which could thrust the country into further political uncertainty. Negotiations over the formation of the country’s next government may also be rife with political turbulence that could exacerbate the economic crisis.
“These changes are signaling the beginning of a new political phase,” said Sfeir. “(It’s) one that could either put back Lebanon on the right path of reform or further escalate its collapse due to political deadlocks and potential violence.”
France officially recognizes China’s treatment of Uyghurs as ‘genocide’ in parliamentary resolution
French lawmakers have condemned the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur people with an official resolution calling it a “genocide.”
On Tuesday, France’s National Assembly adopted the non-binding resolution that “officially recognizes the violence perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide,” reported Agence France-Presse.
Filed by the opposition Socialists Party, the motion gained support from President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move (LREM) party, receiving 169 votes in favor and only one vote against.
The parliamentary resolution urges the national government to protect the Uyghur minority group by taking “the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People’s Republic of China.”
Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure recalled how the Uyghur survivors testified in the French parliament that those detained in internment camps in Xinjiang suffered abuse such as rape and torture.
“China is a great power,” Faure was quoted as saying. “We love the Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight.”
China has long denied allegations of abuse, claiming they use the camps to provide vocational training and to fight extremism, reported Reuters.
The Chinese embassy in France published a statement on its website, saying, “The sensationalist allegations concerning Xinjiang such as ‘genocide’ are pure lies based on prejudices and hostility towards China.”
Lawmakers in Britain adopted a similar resolution last year, while the Netherlands and Canada parliaments have also officially recognized the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs as “genocide.”
Featured Image via France 24 English
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