French president still pushing Apple, Amazon to join ‘Tech for Good’ initiative

Government officials says that Apple and Amazon haven’t agreed to a new French initiative to get global tech companies to publicly commit to principles including paying their fair share of taxes, according to Reuters.

French President Emmanuel Macron has been trying for three years to convince such companies to work with governments on a series of global challenges such as fighting hate speech online, preserving privacy or contributing to state coffers. Macron’s advisers said on Monday that the president had asked tech companies to sign up to a new initiative called “Tech for Good” underlining principles for the post-COVID world, Reuters reports.

The French government released a list of 75 executives of tech companies that had signed up to the initiative so far, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft President Brad Smith. Apple declined to comment to Reuters, but French officials said talks with the group were ongoing and they could still join the initiative, details of which will be published officially by Tuesday.

Tech for Good is composed of five groups of 15 to 20 organizations, including large companies (tech and non-tech), NGOs, investment funds and startups. The groups develop new cross-company initiatives while delivering on the engagements taken by the more than 80 CEOs during the 2019 Summit, hosted by Macron on the eve of the 4th annual VivaTech conference in Paris, France. The common ambition of the Tech for Good Summit, VivaTech and the Tech for Good startup ecosystem is to increase collaboration of actors of all sizes around “for good” initiatives.