The French labour minister Jean-Pierre Farandou has said that the Platform Work Directive will not be transposed in time for the 2 December deadline, and is unlikely to be ready before the presidential term ends next year.
The French Presidential election is due to take place in April 2027 with the parliamentary session ending in February next year.
“My goal is that the bill exists. It’s already not bad. There is a text, we can launch it but I fear that we will be caught up by a parliamentary framework that will make it difficult to vote on it before February,” Farandou told ‘AFP’ in an interview.
The failure to meet the deadline will mean that France will have to pay a penalty fee to the European Commission. Brahim Ben Ali, leader of the FO-INV union which organises ridehail drivers, told l’Humanité that the failure to meet the deadline was “unacceptable”.
“Drivers and delivery drivers have been waiting for years for real rights over algorithms, their data, automated decisions and their status,”, he added.
Unions held consultations with the labour ministry on 14 September over the draft text, which has been described by sources as disappointing and lacking in ambition.