The familiar silhouette of bike and scooter delivery workers has become part of Paris’ urban landscape. For many city dwellers who rely on them to deliver meals to their door, these precarious workers remain largely “invisible” in surveys and public statistics.

Yet, the availability of quality data about online platforms’ delivery drivers is a major issue. Legally, the transposition into French law of the European Directive (EU) 2024/2831 on the legal framework around platform work (which aims to provide better protection to delivery couriers), expected before December 2 2026, makes it essential to have a better understanding of this population in order to shed light on regulatory choices.

Where occupational health is concerned, an expert appraisal by Anses (March 2025) exposes an alarming situation, and underlines the lack of available data for understanding the health status of these gig workers and implementing appropriate public policies.

It is in this context that France’s Santé-Course project was launched. Led by an interdisciplinary research team from the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD) and the Institut national d’études démographiques (INED), associations working with delivery people (Association de mobilisation et d’accompagnement des livreurs, AMAL; Collectif pour l’insertion et l’émancipation des livreurs, Ciel; Maison des livreurs de Bordeaux; Maison des couriers de Paris; Médecins du monde) and a peer group made up of couriers or former couriers, this project focused on documenting working conditions as well as delivery workers’ physical and mental health, based on a survey conducted among more than 1,000 of them in Paris and Bordeaux.

The study also examines exposure to occupational risks, police checks and cases of discrimination. Hereafter, we turn attention to the profiles of these workers and their working conditions, but the full results are available here.

What does platform work consist of ?

The rise of digital work platforms in France dates back about fifteen years and results from the conjunction of two series of factors: the adoption of new legal norms (notably the Novelli law of 2008 establishing self-employment status), on the one hand, and the generalisation of information and communication technologies as well as the democratisation of their use, on the other. The first point has gradually made the labour market more flexible and paved the way for massive employment of self-employed workers who are taken on by these platforms, while the second one has provided the latter with the conditions for their large-scale deployment.

Read more: Requalifier ou réguler ? Les........

© The Conversation