Macron, Google and Amazon: the documents the Élysée wanted to stay secret

TheThe cult of secrecy in the upper echelons of the French state is not simply confined to its dealings with Uber. A few days ago, and after three years of administrative and legal attempts, Mediapart was finally granted access to correspondence between advisors to President Emmanuel Macron and lobbyists and executives from the group of giant companies known collectively as 'GAFAM' – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft – from the second half of 2017.

Mediapart had been curious to know what relationship the presidency had with these massive multinationals and how close it was to them. So in 2019 we asked the Élysée to send us these administrative documents. The Élysée declined, pleading that these communications were protected by business confidentiality. But what exactly was this “business”? Listening to Emmanuel Macron's comments about the recent 'Uber Files' – leaked documents which showed how close he was to the US company when he was economy minister – surely this business was simply about creating jobs?

To get access to the correspondence Mediapart had to go via the body that oversees access to state administrative documents - the Commission d’Accès aux Documents Administratifs (CADA) – and then the administrative court to Paris. The court ruled that out of the 90 pages that could potentially be sent just one (a report from the Treasury department, the DGFIP, about Amazon's tax situation) and three paragraphs in another (an email on Microsoft's tax strategy) could breach business confidentiality and did not have to be handed over.

All the other documents were sent to Mediapart and they show the extent to which Emmanuel Macron and his advisors work hand in hand with Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Sometimes you get the impression you are reading the creation of a joint communications exercise concerning the development of these giant digital brands in France. These close relationships came against a backdrop in which the same companies were facing demands for the back payment of taxes owed in France. Meanwhile plans for a so-called “GAFA tax” – which was promised by the government throughout Macron's first term - never materialised, and was replaced instead by a universal tax on multinationals.

When questioned about this the Élysée did not respond.

These documents also show the background to public announcements and shed light on the relations between lobbyists and presidential advisors, revealing a striking similarity with the Uber case. The 'Uber Files' revealed that lobbyist Mark MacGann worked in Emmanuel Macron's election campaign team in 2017. And the documents now obtained by Mediapart show that another lobbyist, Amazon's Jean Gonié, also took part in that same campaign. He “pushed” the theme of France being transformed as a leader in online commerce and logistics “during the presidential campaign in working groups for [Macron's party] En Marche in which he took part”. This is revealed in a report from Fabrice Aubert, an Élysée adviser on 'institutions, public action and digital transition', to the president (see below).

Given that involvement in the election, it is unsurprising to see evidence of a deep closeness between the parties once Emmanuel Macron had taken office. “I'm happy to be seeing you again tomorrow,” Amazon's head of public affairs Jean Gonié said in an email to Fabrice Aubert in September 2017. Their meeting was arranged to prepare for the inauguration on October 3rd 2017 of the group's logistical centre at Boves, not far from Amiens in northern France, in the presence of Emmanuel Macron and several senior figures at Amazon. The different parties taking part in the event all shared a common narrative. The number of jobs created by the new centre - “500 permanent posts” - was highlighted by everyone, from the press dossier to the president's remarks, including the little note that the president put in the centre's first parcel, which he himself sent.

The only difficult issue between Amazon and the Élysée: tax

To boost this employment figure Fabrice Aubert even asked for the announcement of the opening of another Amazon site - at Brétigny-sur-Orge south of Paris - to be held back for the Boves inauguration. “We would appreciate the deferring of the laying of the first brick at Brétigny,” he asked Jean Gonié at the start of September. The announcement was choreographed down to the last detail. Amazon's operations director in France, Ronan Bolé, would “make the official announcement of the creation of a second site with 1,000 jobs in the [Paris region]” during the Boves inauguration, Fabrice Aubert informed the president. He added that Emmanuel Macron would be able to “hail this good news for the Paris region's economy”.

The only fly in the ointment in relations between Amazon and the Élysée was a dispute over taxation. Ahead of the inauguration Fabrice Aubert got hold of a copy of the current Treasury tax schedule from the president's advisor on taxation, Laurent Martel. “Amazon will be included in a call for greater convergence in VAT rates between [EU] member states,” said Fabrice Aubert in his report. Discussion over tax issues were also to take place at the inauguration, though in side talks with a “delegation from Amazon group management”, far from the cameras and public gaze.

Fabrice Aubert warned the president in a memo that the vice-president of Amazon operations in Europe, Roy Perticucci, would “encourage you to support the convergence of the European digital single market”. He also said the Amazon executive would “express his satisfaction at the resumption of discussions between Amazon and the DGFIP [editor's note, the French Treasury] concerning the settlement of tax disputes”. He suggested a response that the president could give in English: “Although I cannot interfere with any individual procedure, my wish is that tax disputes with the GAFA regarding the past years can be solved.” The discussions between Amazon and the French tax authorities ended in February 2018 with a settlement for an amount that has not been disclosed.

Should doors be opened for companies that pay little or no tax in France? Under the previous presidency of François Hollande the issue seemed rather less straightforward. In January 2017, for example, Thierry Mandon, then the junior minister in charge of research and innovation, said he wanted to see the emergence of “French champions in AI [artificial intelligence]” and admonished the “international companies who plunder our researchers without paying their taxes here”.

When Emmanuel Macron came to office some months later he opted for a different approach; the presidency was to encourage the creation of an artificial intelligence research centre in Paris. During a meeting with several Google employees in November 2017, President Macron's advisor on research, Thierry Coulhon, learnt that Google was hesitating between France and Germany as to where to locate its AI research centre. “A simple SMS message from the PR [editor's note, president of the Republic] to Eric Schmidt could help make things move the right way,” Coulhon wrote to his colleagues Cédric O and Fabrice Aubert. The trio then put together a proposal for the SMS message that the president could send to Schmidt, who was at the time executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet.

“Would you be able to tell us if the president has finally sent his SMS to Eric Schmidt?” Fabrice Aubert asked a few days later. We do not know what the response was but three months later, on January 23rd 2018, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, announced the creation of a research centre in Paris - promising around ten jobs. The announcement came during the first 'Choose France' summit at Versailles and a video of it was posted on the Élysée's Twitter account (see below).

When contacted, Google confirmed that the idea for the AI research centre stemmed from a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Eric Schmidt at the VivaTech salon in Paris in June 2017. The US group said that meetings continued until January 2018 and said it was common practice for a company of its size to have partnerships with public authorities.

As in the Amazon case, these announcements were being made at a time when Google was facing a demand for 1.15 billion euros in back taxes from the French Treasury, something they were contesting in an administrative court. This issue was not raised in the planned SMS message nor at the VivaTech salon meeting months earlier. Instead, the chance to discuss it arose in July 2017 and at Google's instigation.

Caroline Atkinson, in charge of international policy at Google and a former advisor to Barack Obama, was in France at the time to take part in the Rencontres Économiques economic forum at Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. The public relations agency Image Sept, run by communications specialist Anne Méaux who herself worked at the Élysée many years ago, suggested to President Macron's chief of staff Alexis Kohler that he meet Atkinson. The agency highlighted the latter's role in the Obama administration and pointed out to Kohler that he had already met her in 2016 “in his previous post” when he was chief of staff to Macron at the Ministry of the Economy. Caroline Atkinson wanted to make a detour to Paris to discuss various issues including “digital transformation”, “competition” and “taxation”, the agency said.

“Wouldn't this be the time for a frank exchange on tax issues (which the PR [editor's note, president] didn't have with Scmidt?” wondered Cédric O, the advisor on digital issues, who seemed disappointed that Emmanuel Macron was no longer talking about that issue. In a memo the advisors suggested to Kohler that he “reiterate France's firm message about the need for a rebalancing between States on taxation of the digital giants” and to “underline that other large digital companies, such as Amazon, have a permanent establishment [editor's note, meaning a taxable presence] in France for tax purposes.”

The advisors also talked about the recent legal judgement against Google for abusing a dominant market position. While the demand for back tax against Google was initially set aside in July 2017 by the administrative court and then by the administrative court of appeal, in September 2019 Google eventually agreed to pay a billion euros to settle its outstanding legal and tax issues. Google told Mediapart that it had resolved these disagreements over tax as part of a financial agreement. At the same time it had pushed for tax reforms, it said, a move that was coordinated at an international level.

“Taxation of the dreadful GAFAMs”, as advisor Cédric O ironically referred to the issue in an email, was also on the agenda with Microsoft. These talks did not occur, however, when Cédric O met Microsoft France director Vahé Torossian in July 2017, judging from the notes of that meeting that Mediapart has obtained. But the matter was discussed a few months later at the behest of Microsoft lobbyist Jean-Renaud Roy, who seemed to want to help the French president's office find the correct public language to use when he offered to discuss the issue of Microsoft paying more tax in France, in particular relating to the rolling out of the group's 'cloud' services. At the end of August 2017 L'Express news magazine had revealed that the French tax authorities were demanding 600 million euros in back taxes from Microsoft.

In his email in November 2017 Jean-Renaud Roy said he wanted to avoid the government facing an “issue over consistency” or to be accused of “grandstanding”. He explained that any “eventual demands for back payment of taxes … could be thwarted”, especially as the group did not have permanent establishment for tax purposes in France. “Sums much higher than those in disputes seen this year between the tax authorities and other companies could leak into the press and highlight political/public impotence”, he warned. That was why he was suggesting a meeting to help get the right message across.

The president's advisor on tax issues, Laurent Martel, responded: “We don't interfere in how the tax authorities handle individual cases, even large ones.” But he said he was “interested in a conversation on the development of your policy and your general perception of GAFAM taxation”.

-------------------------

If you have information of public interest you would like to pass on to Mediapart for investigation you can contact us at this email address: enquete@mediapart.fr. If you wish to send us documents for our scrutiny via our highly secure platform please go to https://www.frenchleaks.fr/ which is presented in both English and French.

-------------------------

• The original French version of this article can be found here.

English version by Michael Streeter