As has only now become known thanks to a report in the magazine “Revue21”, the French social security fund URSSAF has been demanding no less than 1.7 billion euros from the driving service Uber since December. In a letter to the French branch of the American company, the payment request is justified by the fact that the Uber platform has not paid any social contributions for the drivers it uses since the start of its activities in France.
From the perspective of Uber management This is completely normal, because it sees the people behind the wheel of their cars as self-employed people, who in France mostly pursue their business as “autoentrepreneurs”, i.e. sole proprietors, and therefore have to take care of their own pension provision and insurance.
The URSSAF, on the other hand, considers Uber drivers to be employees within the meaning of French law. And since the obligatory contributions to the social security system for these employees – i.e. health insurance and occupational accident insurance, old age pension, family allowances and unemployment insurance – were never paid, the drivers’ employment is considered “illicit work”.
Uber originally said that every chauffeur it provides is “their own boss.” But the reality of everyday work is different: the drivers are largely dependent on the platform, which also decides on tariffs and sanctions employees because of bad reviews from customers.
To be on the safe side, the judiciary has blocked 350 million euros
In a letter from 2024, the URSSAF claims that Uber “knowingly disguised an employee relationship as an entrepreneurial contract in order to avoid the (social law) obligations as an employer.” In doing so, Uber violated the law. The Paris public prosecutor’s office confirmed to the newspaper “Le Monde” that a preliminary judicial investigation had been opened in this regard, during which several dozen affected drivers had already been questioned.
In detail, 71,194 cases are listed in the period from 2019 to 2022. If Uber had declared these drivers as employees, the usual social contributions (in France paid by employees as deductions from their wages and by the employer) would have been charged in the amount of 1.2 billion euros. To ensure that the demand for additional payments including late payment interest is not simply ignored as a purely formal protest, the judiciary has already blocked 350 million euros from Uber.
For years, Uber drivers have been demanding, sometimes at demonstrations in several cities in France, that their rights as employees are recognized. Many of them also got heavily into debt when they bought their own vehicle to work for Uber. Indirectly, traditional taxi drivers would also be very happy if the authorities put an end to this competition.
Uber is not the only company that is being targeted by the judiciary in France on suspicion of such undeclared work. The home delivery service Deliveroo has also already been investigated, and in the first instance the company was ordered to pay back 360 million euros for employees who were not properly registered. Before the appeal process, the URSSAF appears to have reached an out-of-court settlement. Uber also now appears to be seeking dialogue with the French authorities under pressure.