10.6092/issn.1561-8048/14091
In France, the issue of platform workers is the subject of a clear tension between the legislator and the civil judges. A tension that the European Commission, but also the Criminal Court of Paris, participate to feed.
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Barbara Gomes
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Italian Labour Law e-Journal
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The French platform workers: a thwarted path to the third status
Text.Serial.Journal
https://illej.unibo.it/
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Miscellaneous
2022-07-21
2021-12-19
2022-07-21
2022-07-21
143-149
ILLeJ
Barbara Gomes
2022/07/21
10.6092/issn.1561-8048/14091
143
University of Avignon
1561-8048
1
Directive
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149
The French platform workers: a thwarted path to the third status
https://illej.unibo.it/article/download/14091/14471
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The French platform workers: a thwarted path to the third status                     Italian Labour Law e-Journal
Barbara Gomes                                                                               Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
barbara.gomes@univ-avignon.fr                                                                     ISSN 1561-8048
                                                                   https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/14091




     The French platform workers: a thwarted path to the
                        third status
                                               Barbara Gomes



 1. Introduction. 2. The inclination of the French legislator for a third status. 3. The withstand
 of the French judges. 4. The rallying of the European Commission.




                                                        Abstract

     In France, the issue of platform workers is the subject of a clear tension between the legislator
     and the civil judges. A tension that the European Commission, but also the Criminal Court of
     Paris, participate to feed.

     Keyword: Platform; Work; Workers; Gig economy; French labor law; Case law; Legislator;
     Directive.




 1. Introduction.

    The French status of professional activity has been the figure of the employee and the
 contract of employment. Any worker who does not fall under it, is considered to be an
 independent one. When the proof of the existence of the employment relationship is
 complicated, difficult or impossible, but the workers’ economic and social conditions require
 the protection typical of the employee, the legislator can decide to extend the social
 legislation (or part of it) to entire professional categories. These provisions are included in
 the seventh part of the French Labour Code. It imposes the enforcement of the labour law
 for travellers representing ushers, professional journalists, performing artists and even
 models.
    In France, platform workers like delivery man or drivers carry out their activities under a
 micro-business entrepreneurial legal regime. However, the legislator had to intervene to start
 building a status including a certain number of rights associated with formal professional

 
   Lecturer (social and digital law), Avignon University. This article has been submitted to a double-blind peer
 review process.
    Barbara Gomes                                                                              Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                                      Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                                      Section: Miscellaneous




activity. We can find the provisions in the Labour Code but, this time, they are not really
aimed to guarantee to these workers a status of employee, or to ensure their access to most
of the social rights despite their independent status... On the contrary, they are aimed at
circumventing the employment status, to grant to these workers very few rights and to assert
their self-employed status. Arguably, since this first step in 2016,1 by successive strikes,
French law has been moving towards a third status for platforms workers: as a subordinate
one like in case of as formal employees (somehow even more), but without the full autonomy
and decision-making capacity of the self-employed ones.
   However, for French judges, there is no ambiguity in this regard: platform workers are
bogus self-employed and should be classified as employees. Yet, the government persists in
locking them into the qualification of self-employed workers, and thus, to legitimize the
fraudulent approach of the digital labour platforms.2 The recent initiative of the European
Commission should put the brakes on this drift with a Proposal of directive establishing a
presumption of employment relationship.
   Let’s come to the inclination of the French legislator for a third status (1) despite the
withstand of the judges (2), which will certainly be thwarted by the rallying of the European
Commission to the judges’ position (3).


2. The inclination of the French legislator for a third status.

    The Law of August 8, 20163 is the one which brings platform workers into the Labour
Code to better remove them the status of employee. It grants to the platform workers the
right to strike, the freedom of association, but also the insurance against work accidents
(which favours "private" insurers over social protection for employees)4. In doing so, the law
relies on the vocabulary used by the platforms, by mentioning “workers using a networking
platform”. However, delivery or transportation platforms are not just “networking” platforms
as they do not limit themselves to an intermediary role. In particular, they carry out activities
which they develop and control in an end-to-end basis (prices, development of the activity,
control of productive behaviour…). As the European Court of Justice stated in the Elite
Taxi ruling against Uber: the digital connection is only accessory to a main service (in this
case: transport).5

1 Loi n° 2016-1088 du 8 août 2016 relative au travail, à la modernisation du dialogue social et à la sécurisation
des parcours professionnels, JORF n°0184 du 9 août 2016.
2 Jeammaud A., Uber – Deliveroo. Le retour de la fraude à la loi?, in Semaine sociale Lamy, 1802, 2018, 43-46.
3 See nt. (1).
4 Article L. 7342-2
5 CJEU Case C-434/15, Asociación Profesional Elite Taxi contro Uber Systems Spain SL, 20 december. 2017. See

Bonneville P., Broussy E., Cassagnabère H., Gänser C., Chronique de jurisprudence de la CJUE, in Ajda, 2018, 329;
Nourissat C., Note sous CJUE, 20 déc. 2017, Asociación Profesional Elite Taxi, aff. C-434/15, in Journal du droit
international, 2, 2018, 689; Gomes B., Les plateformes en droit social. L'apport de l'arrêt Elite Taxi contre Uber, in Revue
du droit du travail, févr., 2018, 250; Martucci F., Concurrences, in Revue des droit de la concurrence, 2018, 183;
Grozdanovski L., L'opportunité d'un régime spécifique en droit de l'Union européenne relatif à l'économie collaborative, in
Turmo A. (ed.)., Ubérisation et économie collaborative: évolutions récentes dans l'Union européenne et ses Etats membres, 2020,
Paris: Éditions Panthéon-Assas; Simon P., Uber saisi par le droit du marché intérieur, in Turmo A (ed.)., Ubérisation

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  Barbara Gomes                                                                                 Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                                       Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                                       Section: Miscellaneous




   The highest French court in private law and its chamber dedicated to the labour disputes
(the Social Chamber of the Cour de Cassation) has already ruled twice on this issue (infra),
and granted all social rights to platform workers by reclassifying their service contract into
an employment contract. However, apparently this will not limit the desire of the French
legislator to remove platforms workers from the employment status in favour of a third
status.
   Twice indeed, the legislator has tried to establish “social charters” to “secure the platforms
against the risk of reclassification”.6 Instead of social rights, the labour platforms granted to the
workers a set of “guarantees”. Twice, the scheme was censored by the Supreme Court
(Conseil Constitutionnel), in particular the texts deprived the judges of their reclassification
competence.7 However, the path to the third status continues.
   A social dialogue authority was thus created by an ordinance of April 21, 2021: the
authority for social relations of employment platforms (autorité des relations sociales des
plateformes d’emploi – ARPE). It is a special authority that reflects the desire not to apply
collective labour law to digital labour platforms. The ARPE is assigned the following
missions: organize the national election of representatives of "independent" platform
workers; finance their training, compensation, and protection against the risk of
discrimination; support the development of social dialogue and monitor the activity of digital
work platforms; ensure the payment of compensation to self-employed workers to
compensate for the loss of turnover related to the exercise of their mandate. The election of
workers' representatives takes place this week.
   Recently, the social security finance bill (art. 50) incorporated a complementary social
protection into the field of competence of social dialogue. This new step towards the third
status provoked the ire of some delivery men and drivers’ unions. In particular, the general
secretary of the INV des chauffeurs VTC union (union of platform drivers) considers that
“ARPE is a mock regulation” which generates social dependency and is enforced by rider,
which is “immoral”. He concludes saying “the third status is coming”.8 Yet, French judges
are very pretty clear about it: platform workers are employees.




et économie collaborative: évolutions récentes dans l'Union européenne et ses Etats membres, Éditions Panthéon-Assas, Paris,
2020.
6 « L’objet de cet amendement est de réguler socialement les plateformes de la mobilité, c’est-à-dire celles

réalisant des prestations de transport avec des véhicules avec chauffeurs (VTC) ainsi que des prestations de
livraison. [Il s’agit de] garantir des droits renforcés aux travailleurs indépendants de ce secteur, tout en sécurisant
le modèle économique de ces plateformes », Ass. nat., 29 mai 2019, LOM – n° 1974, sous-amendement 3494.
7 Gomes B., Constitutionnalité de la “charte sociale” des plateformes de “mise en relation”: censure subtile, effets majeurs, in

Revue de Droit du Travail, 1, 2020, 42.
8 See https://twitter.com/BENALIBrahim20/status/1469756242201563140.



https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/14091                                                                                145
    Barbara Gomes                                                                               Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                                       Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                                       Section: Miscellaneous




3. The withstand of the French judges.9

    The persistent intervention of the French legislator can be explained by the insistence of
the French judges in classifying the relationship between drivers, deliverymen and the
platforms as employment relations.
    In the first case, handed down on 28 November 2018,10 the judges analysed how digital
tools were used by the delivery platform TAKE EAT EASY to show the existence of a
power of direction and sanction. The decision states that “the application was equipped with a
geolocation system enabling the company to monitor the courier’s position in real time and to record the total
number of kilometres travelled by them and, on the other hand, that Take Eat Easy had the power to sanction
the courier”.11
    Subsequently, there were other decisions ruled on requalification, further underpinning
the power analysis. In the UBER rulings of the Paris Court of Appeal and the Cour de
Cassation, the judges used other clues, enriching the forensic analysis. Indeed, in the Uber
ruling of March 4, 2020,12 the Cour de Cassation stated, as the Court of Appeal had done before,
the economic dependence of the driver. The judges pointed out that the platform had the
“faculty to temporarily disconnect the driver from its application as of three refusals of journeys and that the
driver may lose access to his account in case of exceeding a rate of cancellation of orders or reports of
“problematic behaviour”, which characterises the existence of a link of authority”. By publishing its
decision in three languages (French, English and Spanish), with a lot of notes and press
releases, the social chamber of the Court intended to send a clear message both at national
and European level. A message which seems to be heard by the European Commission (see
below).
    One month ago, on 19 April 2022, the Paris Criminal Court found Deliveroo France
guilty of the offence of concealed work and fined it €375,000. Two of its directors and an
operational director were also sentenced for the offence of concealed work and complicity
to prison sentences and a suspended ban on running companies. The judge referred to a
"fictitious legal cover", and excluded work platforms from the scope of the 2016 law,
recalling in passing that "the alleged benevolence of the executive power cannot in itself have a normative

9 Michel S., L'article 44 de la LOM versus les arrêts Take Eat Easy et Uber, in Jurisprudence sociale Lamy, 494, 2020, 3;
Gomes B., Sachs T., The Battle between the Legislator and Judges Over Platform Worker Accountability: The French Case,
in Carinci M. T., Dorssemont F. (eds.), Platform Work in Europe. Towards Harmonisation?, Intersentia, Belgium,
2021, 83 ff.
10 Cass. soc., 28 nov. 2018, n° 17- 20.079; See Gomes B., Take Eat Easy: une première requalification en faveur des

travailleurs des plateformes, in Semaine Sociale Lamy, 1847, 2018, 6; Lokiec P., De la subordination au contrôle, in Semaine
Sociale Lamy, 1847, 2019, 1; Huglo J.-G., Take Eat Easy: une application classique du lien de subordination, in Semaine
Sociale Lamy, 1842-1843, 2018, 3; Dockès E., Le salariat des plateformes. À propos de l'arrêt TakeEatEasy, in Le Droit
ouvrier, 846, 2019, 8.
11 Ibid.
12 Cass. soc., 4 mars 2020, n° 19-13.316 ; See Champeaux F., Uber rattrapé par la subordination, in Semaine Sociale

Lamy, 1925, 2020; Chastagnol G., Arrêt Uber: une victoire à la Pyrrhus contre les plateformes, in Option Droit & Affaires,
1st April 2020; Loiseau G., Menace sur le modèle économique des plateformes de mise en relation en ligne, in Communication
commerce électronique, 4, 2020; Baeur D., Kevin Mention avocet qui lutte contre l'ubérisation des services, in Petites Affiches,
24 April 2020; Pasquier T., L’arrêt Uber - une décision a-disruptive, in AJ Contrats d’affaires: concurrence, distribution,
Dalloz, France, 2020, 227-234; Gomes B., L'arrêt Uber va contraindre les plateformes de travail à changer de modèle, in
Liaison sociale quotidien, L’actualité, 18021; Bossu B., Le chauffeur Uber est bien un salarié, in La Semaine Juridique:
éedition générale, 29, 2020, 1373-1377.

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     Barbara Gomes                                                                             Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                                      Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                                      Section: Miscellaneous




value". The deliberation is severe but commensurate with the "disturbance of economic, social and
fiscal public order", described as "major", both for workers and the State, as well as for public
establishments and social security institutions. This decision may be an additional element to
enable the adoption of the proposal for a directive presented by the European Commission.


4. The rallying of the European Commission.

    On 9 December 2021 the European Commission published a directive proposal entitled
“improving working conditions in platform work” 13 which may become a game-changer.
    The Commission perfectly takes up in its reasoning the elements that impose the
application of labour legislation to the relationship between workers and platforms. It intends
to fight against bogus self-employment and the difficulties in qualifying the employment
relationship in the case of platform workers. It is also about better defining the border
between networking platform (with genuine self-employed who can remain such so) and
labour platforms (with workers who should be considered as employees).14 But above all, the
Commission intends “to ensure that people working through platforms have – or can obtain – the correct
employment status in light of their real relationship with the digital labour platform and gain access to the
applicable labour and social protection rights” 15. This can be achieved by applying a well-known in
France principle of primacy of facts that should lead to the correct qualification of the
professional status.16 To determine this, it will be necessary to take into account the use of
algorithms in the work organization.17 The text implements a rebuttable presumption of
employment relationship for persons working through digital labour platforms that control
certain elements of the work performance (art.4) : determining a level of remuneration,
imposing rules of appearance or conduct, supervising the performance of work or verifying
the quality of the results of the work; restricting the freedom of the worker, including through
sanctions, to organise one’s work, in particular the possibility to freely choose one’s working
hours or periods of absence, to accept or to refuse tasks or to use subcontractors or
substitutes, restricting the possibility to build a client base or to perform work for any third
party. To trigger the application of the presumption in practice at least two of all the above-
mentioned criteria should be fulfilled.


13 Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council, European Commission, Brussels,
9.12.2021, COM (2021) 762 final, 2021/0414 (COD) on improving working conditions in platform work.
14 One can read in the document that « Conversely, genuine self-employed people working through platforms

will indirectly benefit from more autonomy and independence, as a result of digital labour platforms adapting
their practices to avoid any risk of reclassification”. By the way, the distinction between what the author
designates as "labour platforms" and what are really "networking platforms" is central in her research. We can
find this concern in our work, especially in his thesis, Gomes B., Le droit du travail à l’épreuve des plateformes
numériques, Université Paris Nanterre, 2017, or more specifically in Gomes B., Le modèle du contrat de travail au défi
des plateformes numériques, in Le Droit ouvrier, 854, 2019, 599-604.
15 See nt. (13).
16 Gomes B., Les travailleurs des plateformes sont-ils des travailleurs au sens du droit de l’Union?, in Semaine sociale Lamy,

1907, 2020, 12.
17 Art. 4 ´” supervising the performance of work or verifying the quality of the results of the work including by

electronic means”, see nt. (13).

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 Barbara Gomes                                                                    Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                         Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                         Section: Miscellaneous




   Of course, for now it remains for the European Parliament to decide. However, the
position of the Commission, which is oriented in a clear and unambiguous way in the
direction taken by French judges (and others all over Europe), could lead the French
legislator to back down. To be continued…


                                               Bibliography


Abdelnour S., Méda D., Les nouveaux travailleurs des applis, Presses Universitaire de France,
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Baeur D., Kevin Mention avocet qui lutte contre l'ubérisation des services, in Petites Affiches, 24 April
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Bonneville P., Broussy E., Cassagnabère H., Gänser C., Chronique de jurisprudence de la CJUE,
in Ajda, 2018, 329;
Bossu B., Le chauffeur Uber est bien un salarié, in La Semaine Juridique: éedition générale, 29, 2020,
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1st April 2020;
Dockès E., Le salariat des plateformes. À propos de l'arrêt TakeEatEasy, in Le Droit ouvrier, 846,
2019, 8;
Gomes B., Le droit du travail à l’épreuve des plateformes numériques, Université Paris Nanterre,
2017;
Gomes B., Les plateformes en droit social. L'apport de l'arrêt Elite Taxi contre Uber, in Revue du droit
du travail, févr., 2018, 250;
Gomes B., Take Eat Easy: une première requalification en faveur des travailleurs des plateformes, in
Semaine Sociale Lamy, 1847, 2018, 6;
Gomes B., Le modèle du contrat de travail au défi des plateformes numériques, in Le Droit ouvrier, 854,
2019, 599-604;
Gomes B., Constitutionnalité de la “charte sociale” des plateformes de “mise en relation”: censure subtile,
effets majeurs, in Revue de Droit du Travail, 1, 2020, 42-48;
Gomes B., Les travailleurs des plateformes sont-ils des travailleurs au sens du droit de l’Union?, in Semaine
sociale Lamy, 1907, 2020, 12;
Gomes B., L'arrêt Uber va contraindre les plateformes de travail à changer de modèle, in Liaison sociale
quotidien, L’actualité, 18021;
Gomes B., Sachs T., The Battle between the Legislator and Judges Over Platform Worker Accountability:
The French Case, in Carinci M. T., Dorssemont F. (eds.), Platform Work in Europe. Towards
Harmonisation?, Intersentia, Belgium, 2021, 83 ff.;
Grozdanovski L., L'opportunité d'un régime spécifique en droit de l'Union européenne relatif à l'économie
collaborative, in Turmo A. (ed.)., Ubérisation et économie collaborative: évolutions récentes dans l'Union
européenne et ses Etats membres, 2020, Éditions Panthéon-Assas, Paris, 2020;

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1561-8048/14091                                                                 148
 Barbara Gomes                                                                   Italian Labour Law e-Journal
                                                                                        Issue 1, Vol. 15 (2022)
                                                                                        Section: Miscellaneous




Huglo J.-G., Take Eat Easy: une application classique du lien de subordination, in Semaine Sociale
Lamy, 1842-1843, 2018, 3;
Jeammaud A., Uber – Deliveroo. Le retour de la fraude à la loi?, in Semaine sociale Lamy, 1802, 2018,
43-46;
Loiseau G., Menace sur le modèle économique des plateformes de mise en relation en ligne, in
Communication commerce électronique, 4, 2020;
Lokiec P., De la subordination au contrôle, in Semaine Sociale Lamy, 1847, 2019, 1;
Martucci F., Concurrences, in Revue des droit de la concurrence, 2018, 183;
Michel S., L'article 44 de la LOM versus les arrêts Take Eat Easy et Uber, in Jurisprudence sociale
Lamy, 494, 2020, 3;
Nourissat C., Note sous CJUE, 20 déc. 2017, Asociación Profesional Elite Taxi, aff. C-434/15, in
Journal du droit international, 2, 2018, 689-691;
Pasquier T., L’arrêt Uber - une décision a-disruptive, in AJ Contrats d’affaires: concurrence, distribution,
Dalloz, France, 2020, 227-234;
Salvoldelli P., Ubérisation, et après?, 2021, Editions du détour, Paris;
Simon P., Uber saisi par le droit du marché intérieur, in Turmo A (ed.)., Ubérisation et économie
collaborative: évolutions récentes dans l'Union européenne et ses Etats membres, Éditions Panthéon-
Assas, Paris, 2020.




Copyright © 2022 Barbara Gomes. This article is released under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License




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